Russian Prime Minister Medvedev and ChMK engineers jointly pressed the project launch button

July 16 is the holiday for all Russian metallurgists and also the 70th anniversary of the founding of the Chelyabinsk Metallurgical Plant (hereinafter referred to as ChMK). The commissioning ceremony of the ChMK rail beam project, undertaken by China Minmetals Corporation, was held in Chelyabinsk. Russian Prime Minister Medvedev attended the ceremony and delivered a speech. Chinese Ambassador to Russia Li Hui and China Minmetals President Zhou Zhongshu also attended the ceremony and congratulated on the commissioning of the project.

The main task of the rail beam project was to renovate ChMK's No. 3 rolling workshop and install a universal rolling mill. The renovated production line can produce sections and rails. China Minmetals was responsible for detailed design, supply of public auxiliary systems, and civil construction and installation of the entire line. The project was provided with export credit by the Export-Import Bank of China and insured by the China Export & Credit Insurance Corporation. The rail beam project, which started in 2010, lasted nearly three years, including 15 months of winter construction. It is the largest metallurgical project undertaken by China in the CIS region to date. During the implementation, China Minmetals overcame differences between China and Russia in design, manufacturing, construction specifications, and other aspects, and fully achieved a close integration of "Made in China" with local standards. The commissioning of the project provides product support for Russia's planned high-speed rail construction.

At the celebration, Medvedev said that the completion of the project not only achieved technological equipment upgrading and improvement but also created many new high-paying jobs, making a significant contribution to raising the living standards of local people.

In his speech, Ambassador Li Hui said that in recent years, China-Russia economic and trade cooperation has been continuously improving, further enriching the material content of the comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination between the two countries. Russia's Mechel Group (ChMK) and China Minmetals are both internationally renowned large enterprises. Their sincere cooperation and effective coordination enabled the smooth completion of the project. The project has received attention and importance from the leaders of both countries. The governments and relevant departments of the two countries actively coordinated to solve difficulties encountered in the project and gave strong support. The Russian 100-meter rail beam production line is of great significance to Russia's high-speed rail construction. It is a successful example of China-Russia cooperation in projects with high added value and high technology content. It will surely bring a good demonstration effect to cooperation between enterprises of the two countries and fully conforms to the spirit of the consensus reached by the leaders of the two countries on developing China-Russia economic and trade relations.

In an interview with reporters, Ambassador Li Hui also pointed out that the project is of great significance to economic and trade cooperation and political relations between the two countries. At present, China-Russia economic and trade exchanges are very close, but there is still much room for improvement in industrial cooperation. This project uses China's own core technology to renovate a key project in Russia. This new cooperation model has achieved a breakthrough in pragmatic cooperation between the two countries. In addition, with Italy, trilateral cooperation has leveraged each party's advantages to bring the project to a successful completion. At present, many Chinese enterprises are willing to participate in the renovation projects of Russian enterprises. It is believed that in the future, more Chinese enterprises will leverage their advantages, learn from Minmetals' experience, and create more successful cooperation projects.

China Minmetals President Zhou Zhongshu said excitedly to reporters that the cooperation between Minmetals and Mechel Group was completed under the witness of the leaders of both countries and represents a new model of cooperation between large enterprises of the two countries. The production line built by this cooperation project will provide rail beams for high-speed railways in the future, boosting Russia's high-speed rail construction, and has received widespread attention from Russian society. At present, Minmetals and Mechel Group have established a good cooperative relationship in engineering construction, and the two companies are highly complementary. In the future, both sides will explore more cooperation opportunities in resource development and engineering construction.

As Russian Prime Minister Medvedev pressed the launch button for the 100-meter rail project, the celebration reached its climax. Russia now has another production line for manufacturing high-quality high-speed rail tracks. Warm applause broke out at the scene. Employees who had worked hard on this project for nearly three years could hardly hide their excitement and smiled as they congratulated each other. Afterwards, accompanied by the ChMK plant manager, Medvedev toured the entire renovated 100-meter production line. Seeing the equipment in operation on the production line colliding with the rails and producing fiery sparks, Medvedev smiled and nodded. These fiery sparks are just like the new inspiration generated by Chinese and Russian enterprises through their running-in process, inspiring them to create more successful examples in the future.