Commonwealth of Independent States To Cooperate On Shipbuilding & Outfitting

A cooperation agreement between members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) on the development of civilian shipbuilding and production of ship outfitting equipment has gone into effect, the CIS Executive Committee has reported.

The CIS includes Russia along with Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Of these, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Turkmenistan have Caspian Sea access, while Belarus and Uzbekistan have navigable freight rivers. Armenia, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan do not possess navigable waterways although could contribute in some engineering provisions.

The CIS document states, “The goal of this agreement is to promote the development of civilian shipbuilding in CIS member nations, taking into account priority areas for the modernization of the economies and national strategic sectoral programs of this agreement’s participating nations in the interests of increasing the global market share of the civilian shipbuilders of this agreement’s participating nations.”

Participants in the agreement commit to facilitate the development of coordinated decisions on building cooperative process chains between manufacturers of civilian shipbuilding products and ship accessory equipment for joint production of high-tech products. In order to meet the set goals, the agreement calls for sharing information about priority civilian shipbuilding products and ship accessory equipment for CIS countries and agreement on the main areas in which to develop cooperation and coordination of joint action.

The document also calls for “establishing favorable conditions for the formation of joint production facilities, consortiums, and unified research centers in the area of civilian shipbuilding and production of ship accessory equipment.”

The Russian Transport Ministry stated last year that Russian seaports’ annual throughput capacity will be increased by 232 million tonnes in the period 2025-2030, while all the Caspian states have significant port development plans, increasing the need for shipbuilding to keep pace with the development trends. 

Further Reading

Annual Meetings Of Heads of State of the Commonwealth of Independent States: Economic Analysis