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Putin: our shipbuilders are losing out in quite a few substantial areas.
The move forms part of a wider strategy in response to declining output from oilfields in Siberia, many of which date back to the era of Soviet communism, and to turn instead to such resources as the giant Shtokman field in the Barents Sea.
Key Putin ally Igor Sechin - who currently serves as both chairman of state oil giant Rosneft and as deputy prime minister - will head up a state-run holding company to be known as United Shipbuilding Corp, which could be up and running as early as April 2009.
According to Mr Putin, speaking at a government meeting in his home town of St Petersburg, Russia needs to create “a line of marine technology for the extraction and transportation of hydrocarbon resources on the continental shelf, including drilling platforms, ice class oil and gas tankers and icebreakers.
“In other countries, ships are built faster and more cheaply and are of better quality. Our shipbuilders are losing out in quite a few substantial areas, specifically in terms of labour productivity, production organisation and the rate of innovation.”
According to Mr Putin, shipbuilding in Russia requires between three and five times the labour input of shipbuilding in more advanced countries. Parts of his speech hinted at a willingness to seek foreign partners, in order to speed up the modernisation process.
Deputy prime minister Sergei Ivanov told journalists that Russia is likely to spend 136bn roubles ($5.7bn) between 2009 and 2016 in developing its shipbuilding sector, with government funds providing up to 60% of that cash.
Also at the meeting - which took place at the OAO Admiralteiskiye Verfi shipyard - were finance minister Alexei Kudrin, defence minister Anatoly Serdyukov and industry and trade minister Viktor Khristenko.
Mr Khristenko said that 74% of the vessels produced in Russia last year were for military use, and that civilian shipbuilding needed to double its share of output. “In order to make the sector more competitive, it must be restructured,” he added.
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