Will Japanese capital investment come to Tatarstan?

Albina ABSALYAMOVA

A recent visit to Kazan of  Mr. Akikusa, the Japanese concern Fujitsu’s chairman of board of directors, caused great interest in the business circles of the republic. It’s quite easy to explain: such important people (the company Fujitsu is one of the three world leaders producing computers, chips, software and communication equipment) don’t fly to any meeting without a good reason as a rule. During his visit Mr. Akikusa met the President of the RT Mintimer Shaimiev in the Kremlin, where they discussed economic situation in the republic, and he also visited the company ICL-КПО ВС, belonging to the group of Fujitsu companies.

To better understand the hidden motive of the visit to Kazan of one of the world business captain we should remember that it’s not the first meeting of representatives of large Japanese companies with the republic leaders. For instance, in September, 2000 Mintimer Shaimiev visited Japan as a member of the Russian Federation government delegation, and a year later the representative of the Japanese concerns Fujitsu and Toyota came to Tatarstan.

It might seem that the visit of 2001 was of familiarizing nature. However, several years later they began to build a new plant, producing Toyota cars in St.Petersburg.

As it turned out, this plant could have been built in Tatarstan as well, at least the main technician from Toyota, Tadao Mitsuda, thoroughly examined the production potentialities of the republic.

This plan with motor-car construction failed. But today the republic has the chances to attract Japanese investments for the development of common projects in the sphere of information techniques. Firstly, it may come true because the Tatarstan President, Mintimer Shaimiev is greatly interested in the development of the IT-sphere, and he believes that the republic should “head for high technologies”. Secondly, the republic already has a ready base for further development of the IT-sphere – the company ICL-КПО ВС.

Having visited this enterprise, Mr. Akikusa spoke highly of the progress made by his Tatarstan colleagues. He mentioned that today the company  ICL-КПО ВС knows and uses the same methods like Fujitsu. “You understand technological peculiarities of making complicated hardware decisions, you re the leaders in guarding, you know how to work with various operational environments, you have wonderful programmers, and you carry on business consulting, - in a word, you do all the things that Fujitsu works on. Actually, your company is Fujitsu in miniature. Your main advantage comparing with other companies in the It-market is that you have all the necessary specialists, who know everything connected with IT, from platform decisions to consulting”, said Mr. Akikusa.

The Fujitsu chairman of board of directors said that he’s interested in the development of the public corporation «ICL-КПО ВС», and confirmed once more that any technology and methodology known by Fujitsu is open and available for Tatarstan colleagues. The companies have already started bringing to life some common projects connected with software production. It should be also kept in mind that Fujitsu is the holder of the control packet of shares of ICL-КПО ВС, and among the shareholders are the government of the RT and company’s management.

It’s interesting that Fujitsu has been searching for a place for building new plants outside Japan, for instance plants producing gas panels and microelectronics for the needs of aircraft building.

The possibility of placing such plants in Russia, and in Tatarstan in particular, was discussed  in the time of existence of the Eltsin-Khasimoto’s plan, but then investment process was dragged out, though the collaboration between our countries started already at that time.

Nowadays, when the observers notice further improvement of the Russian-Japanese political relations, the chances that the common projects will be brought to life are great. And it may greatly influence on the development of Russia upon the whole, and Tatarstan in particular.

For information – according to experts estimation, approximate investment volume for the building of a plant producing gas panels – the base for the future television and computer equipment – may reach 1.5 mlrd US $ with the planned productive capacity of 1 mln item per year, and with the year sales result of about 2-3 mlrd $. Such a plant can give to the republic not less than 2000 workplaces, and it will allow changing the export structure – it’s planned that only one forth of the productions will come into the home market. A plant producing microelectronics can give the republic the platform decisions for the creation of modern aircraft control systems, which will help the Tatarstan equipment find its place in the world market.

Anyway, the tendency influencing the further business relations between two countries depends mainly on the decisions, made on the governmental level. Both sides lay great expectations on the visit of the Russian President Vladimir Putin to Japan, that will take place in November, 2005.

Meanwhile, in the recent interview to ITAR-TASS the Foreign Secretary of Russia, Sergey Lavrov mentioned: despite the fact, that “both sides live without a peace treaty, it doesn’t hamper in the development of two-sided collaboration. Thus, Toyota’s plant has recently been opened, and I believe it’s not the last news in the sphere of the Japanese investments into Russia”.