Gomel Radio Plant will start manufacturing irrigation machines in 2012 under a license from the US company Reinke, BelTA learned from Valery Popkov, Director General of the Gomel Oblast Association of Vegetable and Fruit Manufacturers.

The sides have signed a cooperation agreement that provides for delivering a complete irrigation machine Reinke A100 that will be copied in multitudes. At least four irrigation machines will be assembled by the next summer.

Initially the share of Belarusian components will be as large as 25%. Some parts will be coated with zinc at Rechitsa Hardware Plant. The share of local components is supposed to reach 75% by 2015. The Gomel Oblast budget has allocated Br4.2 billion for the initial phase of the project.

The interest of local authorities in modern irrigation technologies is attributed to vegetable producers, who are suffering from droughts and who lose 20-40% of their harvest to droughts.

Gomel Radio Plant was founded in 1969. It makes special-use products. In 2004 it started manufacturing mobile irrigation machines PDM-2500, PDM-3000 for the oblast administration. The machines are used to deliver water to farmlands, including hayfields, pastures, clean-tilled crops, vegetable plantations.