Kyiv-based Etalon Corporation, the leader of the Ukrainian bus market, has said that its need in investment for 2012 is estimated at Hr 100 million, Corporation President Volodymyr Butko has said.
"At present, the draft requests for upgrade costs Hr 100 million for the whole corporation – this is equipment, construction of warehouses, repair of buildings and other things," he said at a press conference last week.
Director of Boryspil and Chernihiv automobile plants, Valeriy Kuptsov, said that possible investment in the development of the two companies in 2012 could reach $4 million.
Butko said that the exact size of investment will be defined after a meeting of the investment board to be held no earlier than Jan. 20, 2012.
He said that the corporation does not plan to take new loans to invest in its infrastructure, as the credit burden today amounts to some Hr 200 million.
Only Ukreximbank and Bank Pershiy (both based in Kyiv) remained the corporation’s partners.
The Etalon president said that the state owes to the corporation: only under the School Bus program, the debt for buses supplied totals Hr 23.5 million, the debt on value added tax refunding to the export-oriented plant Ukrainian Kardan exceeds Hr 5 million.
"It comes out that we credit the state having such a large credit burden and pay interest rates to banks," he said.
He also said that in 2011 the corporation bought equipment to increase the quality of buses made by the corporation, in particular, equipment for laser cutting and press worth EUR 600,000, a pipe bending machine worth EUR 100,000 and invested Hr 3.7 million in the reconstruction of the heating furnace.
Etalon Corporation currently includes 21 enterprises, including the two bus plants in Boryspil and Chernihiv.
Its core business is bus and machine production, and logistics.
In 2011, the corporation increased sales of vehicles by 67% year-over-year, to 1,509.
