JSC Transmashholding (www.tmholding.ru) — the biggest Russian company in the transport engineering industry — and Hitachi Ltd (www.hitachi.com) have signed an agreement to localise production of traction inverters for passenger rail transport in Russia.

The agreement was signed by Kirill Lipa (CEO of Transmashholding) and Kiyoshi Nakata (Deputy COO of Hitachi’s rolling-stock business unit).

Under the agreement, a Transmashholding-Hitachi joint venture (JV) will use Metrowagonmash — a subsidiary of Transmashholding — to manufacture high-performance traction inverters. Transmashholding will own 51% of the joint venture, Hitachi 49%.

The JV, which will have an annual production capacity of 200 traction systems, will carry out the design as well as manufacturing, assembly, testing, sale, repair and maintenance of the products — making high-performance traction inverters available throughout the Russian market, as well as the CIS and European markets.