Yaroslavl, June 10, - today the largest Technical Center for Applied Research and Development of high-tech automotive coatings in Russia and the CIS has been opened at the Joint Venture "DuPont Russian Coatings".

The new Technical Center will allow to speed up the development of the new coating materials and adapt their technical properties to the line conditions of the OEM car and plastic parts plants.

The Technical Center will enable the OEM plants operating under the "industrial assembly" clause of the Russian legislation to significantly increase the degree of localisation of their production process by using locally produced coating materials. By different estimates the full cycle of automotive body painting can increase the localisation percentage by 5-8% from the full cost of car production. The Technical Center will create 15 jobs and its equipment has required a capital investment exceeding 3 mm USD.

Two laboratories are the core of the Center: The first dedicated to development and localisation of manufacturing of coating materials, and the second section being the quality control laboratory following ISO standards. The testing equipment installed, the quality control system and the education and experience of the personnel are all in line with the global standards of DuPont. The unique equipment installed in the Tech Center allows simulating the painting process at the OEM paint lines.

The Technical center operations could be split into a number of activities, like: development of one and two-layer coatings (standard and metallic), optimisation of the coatings (paints, primers, lacquers) technical features, modification to meet customer and end users requirements, final quality control of materials produced and final appearance of selected coatings system. In addition, the technical staff will work closely with customers to optimise the painting process.

Mr. Elfimov, the General Director of the JV "DuPont Russian Coatings", said: "DuPont strategy is to put science to work and build up long term partnership relations. The creation of the Technical Center and coating technologies in Russia and CIS is a very important step that allow the local automotive producers to get access to the modern coating technologies, and the foreign manufacturers - to get from DuPont the technical service at the level they are used to worldwide"

The main customers of the JV are the automotive plants located in Russia and CIS which produce cars, trucks and buses. Among those are AutoVAZ, KAMAZ, MAZ, companies belonging to GAZ group, companies belonging to Severstal-Avto group and others. As of 2007 the DuPont Russian Coatings supplies also the Toyota plant in St. Petersburg. DuPont Russian Coatings products include all automotive coatings: primers, mono coats, base coats and clear coats.

By opening the Tech Center, DuPont Russian Coatings becomes first in creating such a project in Russia and the CIS, and obtains competitive advantages from being able to provide the new level of high quality service to its customers.

Speaking at the press conference, DuPont Growth Director for Eastern Europe, Mr. Shakhov has noted: "DuPont is a leading producer of coating materials for the automotive industry worldwide. The basis of our success is the ability to timely discover the growth clusters and to invest in a fast and flexible way, so that to utilize this growth potential. We are certain of the opportunities that exist in the Russian automotive industry and our strategic investments into creating this Technical Center prove this, as well as show that DuPont is ready to accept the technological leadership in the Russian market as well".
Russian