Svetlahorsk Machine Building Plant wants to quit Gomselmash Group

The reason is the initiative of Gomselmash Group to deprive the plant of the legal person status and make it just a department of Gomselmash.

Director of the Svetlahorsk Machine Building Plant (SMBP) Uladzimir Polyn appealed to the Ministry of Industry, proposing to withdraw the plant from Gomselmash Group, BelaPAN reports.

According to Polyn, the main goal of the merger was a “significant increase in competitive capacities and effectiveness of the group”. But he thinks that the Svetlahorsk Machine Building Plant is “already competitive” and Gomselmash can achieve its goal only if the group “sets up 10 or 15 such plants like SMBP”.

“In my letter to the minister I proposed the following variant: you let us go and be independent or you sell us to someone else, even Shakutsin [chairman of the board of directors of Amkodor]. He will buy our plant for 100 billion rubles and provide us with orders from Pakistan,” Polyn said.

“It's better to sell the plant and get money,” Polyn says. “Our plant costs only 10 million dollars. The price of our shares with our subsidiary in Petrykau is 97 billion rubles. Is this big money for such a plant? I am sure it can be sold at a much higher price at auction. If you want to get rid of problems, let's get rid of loss-making companies or of those that receive aid from the state budget.”

The plant director thinks making SMBP a department of Gomselmash means “destroying one of the country's best plants”. It won't give anything to the economy and finances of the country, he adds. The move will negatively affect employees of the plant and dwellers of the village of Sasnovy Bor, where BMBP is the key employer.