The head of Mordovia Vladimir Volkov holds a working meeting with the new leaders of RM Rail

The head of Mordovia met with the new leaders of RM Rail. Konstantin Danilov, President of RM Rail Holding, and Vitaliy Starikov, RM Rail General Director, who superseded Pavel Ovchinnikov in this post, were introduced to Vladimir Volkov. They discussed the railcar manufacturers’ performance results in the 1st quarter of 2020, the investment program implementation, as well as measures to prevent coronavirus infection on sites.

The company executives shared their forecasts of performance results in the first half of the year. The company plans to produce about 5,700 rail cars. This is approximately 900 rail cars more year-over-year. Average monthly wages are 44 thousand rubles, which is 20% higher versus the first half of 2019.

The capacity increase is provided by a vast modernization program. A machining center was installed at Ruzkhimmash, foundry equipment was upgraded at VKM-Steel. Last year, capital expenditures amounted to approx. 750 million rubles, in 2020 they already passed the 300 million rubles mark.

From the 2nd quarter, the industry sees a significant drop in freight traffic and, consequently, customer demand. Some locations have already resorted to such unpopular measures as headcount reduction and switch to part-time work. However, RM Rail managed to retain the team and keep the people loaded.

The sanitary and epidemic situation was also discussed at the meeting. Vladimir Volkov expressed his concern about the situation with the spread of coronavirus in Ruzaevsky district. “Generally, the situation there is complicated, but there are two large production sites in the district. Now additional measures are being taken, but they still need to be strengthened, because coronavirus ingress into enterprises is the worst thing that could happen. And the situation in Ruzaevsky district is more complicated than in Saransk and other districts”, the head said.

RM Rail representatives told about enhanced anti-epidemic measures established at the company. The entrances are equipped with infrared scanners, bactericidal irradiators, disinfection lamps are used, sanitization is carried out regularly, personal protective equipment is available. 1,200 people have already passed free COVID-19 testing, another 3,000 are in line. About 38 million rubles have been allocated for this set of measures, including 29M RUB for Ruzkhimmash. Over 6 million rubles of sponsor assistance was forwarded to Ruzaevsky District Hospital.