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The story
The plant was established on 29 May 1946. The first manufactured tractor was caterpillar tractor KD-35 "Kirovets". The production of MTZ-model tractors, the MTZ-1 and MTZ-2 models, started on October 14, 1953. (Prototypes were manufactured in 1949.)
As of 2005, it had nearly 20,000 workers. The plant produces over 62 models of vehicles. Its main civil production has been four-wheeled tractors of model "MTZ", known as Belarus. By 1995 the plant had manufactured 3,000,000 tractors. In 1999, it produced 58% of all tractors manufactured in the CIS. In 2017, its share in the production of wheel tractors in CIS countries was 87%.
MTZ tractors were exported to Western Europe, too.
In 2013, the plant tractors were certified in the US by the Environment Protection Agency (EPA) and in Canada by Environment Canada and received full approval for their import and distribution in both countries. Since 2010, distribution of Belarus tractors in the US and Canada is carried on through a local distributor, MTZ Equipment Ltd.
In 2015, MTZ produced 2,424 tractors, an increase of 45% compared to the previous year (1,648 tractors).
In 2017, 92.1% tractors of 31,011 produced were exported. Eight countries imported more than 500 "Belarus" tractors: Russia (11,135), Pakistan (4,845), Ukraine (4,028), Kazakhstan (2,106), Azerbaijan (1,637), Hungary (871), Romania (812), Lithuania (736).
In 2020, after the Presidential elections, the workers of MTZ went on a strike against Alexander Lukashenko.
In 2022, Canada and Ukraine imposed sanctions on MTZ.
From Wikipedia’s article on Minsk Tractor Works, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4