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Today in St. Petersburg, Sinara-Transport Machines (STM) machine-building holding, which is part of Sinara Group, and Škoda Transportation concern have signed an Agreement to found a joint venture to produce an advanced model range of comfortable and environmentally friendly types of urban transport, including trams, trolleybuses, electric buses and subway cars.

The Agreement was signed by the Chairman of the STM Board of Directors Evgeny Gritsenko, Chairman of the Board and President of Škoda Transportation group Petr Brezina and Vice-President of Škoda Transportation group Zdeněk Mayer. The Agreement stipulates establishing of production facilities in St. Petersburg as part of the Sinara-Skoda joint venture.

Joint venture is focused on design, production, commissioning, sale and maintenance of advanced urban transport: electric trains for subway, advanced trams, trolleybuses and electric buses. Life cycle full support is provided. It is planned to invest 1.5-2 billion rubles in development of production capacities in 2020-2021. Large number of high-tech jobs will be required to ensure development and start of production of urban transport in 2020.

Products of the new enterprise will be in demand by new transport and passenger system of St. Petersburg, development concept of which for the period until 2038 involves expansion of subway, commuter railway and high-speed tram networks.

“Thanks to the technological partnership with Škoda Transportation, we will create high-quality and advanced urban passenger transport, including a new generation tram. Accumulated experience in design, manufacturing and maintenance will allow us to form a product line that will surpass existing Russian counterparts in terms of comfort, ergonomics, energy efficiency and environmental friendliness,” General Director of Sinara-Transport Machines Holding Viktor Lesh said.

“Skoda has been operating on the Russian market for a long time, and, of course, is considering it for further development in long term prospective. We consider Sinara Group as a stable and reliable partner, which has necessary experience to organize joint engineering production of rolling stock and localize it in Russia,” Chairman and CEO of Škoda Transportation Group Petr Brezina said.