TX Finland Oy and United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC) have formed a joint venture company, which will specialize in arctic shipbuilding technology. An agreement for the formation of the new company, Arctech Helsinki Shipyard Oy, was signed today in St. Petersburg in a meeting with the Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and the Finnish Prime Minister Mari Kiviniemi.

According to the agreement both founding companies will hold equal shares of Arctech Helsinki Shipyard Oy. The new company will purchase the Helsinki shipyard from STX Finland.

The joint venture will focus on arctic maritime technology and shipbuilding and will unify Russian and Finnish Maritime clusters. It will start building highly specialized vessels such as icebreakers and other icebreaking special vessels. The joint venture also has an option to buy 20.4% of the shares of Aker Arctic Technology Inc. (AARC) from STX Finland. STX Finland will still remain the majority share holder of AARC, which is a world leading player in arctic maritime technology research and development.

Arctech Helsinki Shipyard Oy will be a 50/50 joint venture company owned by two of the largest shipbuilding corporations in the world. United Shipbuilding Corporation is the state owned Russian shipbuilding corporation, which was formed in 2007. The company has 42 shipyards in Russia and it focuses on developing the Russian civilian and military shipbuilding industry.

STX Finland belongs to the STX Europe group comprising 15 yards in Finland, France, Norway, Romania, Brazil and Vietnam and about 16,000 employees. STX Europe is the world leading supplier of specialized vessels including cruise ships, passenger ferries, offshore supply vessels, ice going vessels and other special vessels. The principal shareholder in STX Europe is the international industrial corporation STX Business Group in Korea employing some 54,000 people world wide.

The joint-venture agreement is an important indicator of the powers of the traditional Russian-Finnish cooperation within the maritime industry. Finnish shipyards have delivered more than 1,500 vessels to Russia . Finnish shipyards have built 60% of all the icebreakers in the world including most of the Russian conventionally powered icebreakers.

“The joint-venture has great potential to utilize the best skills and knowledge from the world-class Russian and Finnish Maritime clusters in an effective way” says Juha Heikinheimo CEO of STX Finland. “The short distance and long term experience of cooperation between the countries will be realized in many forthcoming projects and will bring a lot of activity to Finnish-Russian maritime cluster . “ he continues.

“The joint-venture is a great example of cooperation between Finland and Russia. We believe that the new company will be a significant player in the arctic shipbuilding and the production of hi-tech ice-class vessels, and will meet the needs of developing of Russia’s Arctic shelf”, says Mr. Roman Trotsenko, President of United Shipbuilding Corporation.