Prime Minster of Ukraine Vladimir Groisman visited “AutoKrAZ” during his working trip to Poltava region. Governor of Poltava region Mr.Golovko, Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food Mr.Kutovoy, First Vice-Prime Minister, ATO and Occupied Territories Matters, Mr. Kistion accompanied him during his visit to the company having leading position in Kremenchug and region.
Assembly line, a heart of the automobile plant, which sets pace to all business units was of particular interest for the Head of Cabinet of Ministers. General Director Mr.Chernyak who accompanied the visitors in the assembly department told in details about the plant, its products, showed complete cycle of KrAZ vehicle assembly starting from feeding chassis to assembly line to rolling off. When walking along assembly line, which is 260 m long with 23 stations, Mr.Groisman asked a lot of questions regarding vehicle components, vehicles assembled at the moment, assembly line capacity, the plant’s designed capacity and its current utilization. After checking out the assembly line the Prime Minister spoke with staff during their lunchtime. In his speech delivered to the company’s workers Mr.Groisman said: “I am very pleased to be at your famous company, and I am glad to see assembly line in operation. It means that the plant is operating, people have job and wages. The mission of our government is to provide favorable conditions for domestic manufacturer. When walking along the assembly line I asked questions about manufacturer of chassis, axles, certain parts, 80 percent of them are domestic-made. It means we should increase our production output: we can build aircrafts, vehicles, railway cars and many other things in Ukraine. I think it is a big sin when we do not grasp out own opportunities but prop up neighboring economies. High quality of life is achieved only through economic growth. Loans and exterior help are not sufficient; we need strategy that will aid development of our own production, creation of jobs.
I am in favor of cooperation with other countries because we can not produce everything. However, we should take on markets where we can compete, clean up in our country because there is important need in road maintenance and municipal vehicles and KrAZ manufactures all of them”.
Why should we buy foreign chassis and vehicles when we have our own KrAZ vehicles? Good vehicles, they proved themselves abroad and should be used in Ukraine. When you are in France you see only Peugeot and Citroen, in US only Ford and Chevrolet. You understand this is a reasonable national policy. We should do the same in Ukraine. Ukrainian products for Ukraine.”
Review of mass produced and advanced KrAZ vehicles was of no less interest for the Prime Minister. He listened to the General Director’s story about every vehicle, asked lots of questions, checked out vehicles both inside and outside.
He could not help and tested KrAZ-Spartan driverless vehicle, saying that he was glad that Ukraine moves forward and develops new state-of-the-art technologies. “AutoKrAZ” hopes that the visit of the Head of Government will aid development of national automotive industry, support of domestic manufacturer and economic development of the country.
