Alstom, this flagship of French industry present in Kazakhstan

On tour in Central Asia on Wednesday November 1 and Thursday November 2, Emmanuel Macron wants to sell the flagships of French industry, during a trip with high economic stakes. Some companies are already established in the region, like the railway giant Alstom, which opened a factory in Kazakhstan in 2010. Between the welding tables and the assembly lines, the 700 employees all wear a small French flag on the left sleeve and a Kazakh flag on the other side.

“This is where the base and framework of the locomotive are made. We are trying to have a Lego ride”, describes Karim Larbi, the French industrial manager of the site. He supervises the manufacturing of electric locomotives, sold to the equivalent of the local SNCF, manufactured in Kazakhstan from A to Z. The industrial manager is in charge in these 30,000 m² of workshops built on the model of the Alstom factories in Belfort. , from Tarbes or Petit-Quevilly, but duplicated in Kazakhstan.

The impact of the war in Ukraine

“It’s a country that is ready for business. It’s a young population, hungry for knowledge and with dynamic people, ready to take on challenges”, assures Karim Labri. But the war also disrupted the life of this flagship of French industry. “It made logistics more complex due to bypassing the war zoneexplains the site’s general director, Laurent Bazin. There are also indirect consequences with sanctions. We are completely stopping supplies coming from Russia.”

But despite a slight slowdown in production and Russian and Chinese appetites, Alstom boasts of still being the only manufacturer of electric locomotives in the region. Emmanuel Macron is traveling to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan on Wednesday and Thursday with a delegation of around fifteen business leaders, including EDF and Suez.