1946 - 1991: A pioneering company in international business and Franco-Soviet exchange
The France-Latin America Engineering Company (CIFAL) was founded in 1946 by Pierre DETOEUF, a young engineer from a preeminent pre-war industrial family. The company’s driving force was the desire to export French know-how, technologies and technical goods to countries that would later come to be known as “emerging markets”.
CIFAL rapidly expanded its activities to South America and North Africa before turning to the USSR and other Eastern European countries in the 1950’s, specializing in the area in response to the substantial demand for Western technology and turnkey factories.
In 1970, CIFAL was one of the very first and privileged few French companies to be accredited by the Soviet Foreign Trade Ministry. Over the course of the decade, CIFAL participated in the construction of large industrial structures such as the Ufa refinery as part of a consortium with companies such as ALSTHOM, the Chantiers de l’Atlantique and Five Cail Babcock.
It was during this period, marked by the growth of the civil nuclear industry in France, that CIFAL became the French representative to Techsnabexport (USSR Ministry of Foreign Trade all-union association in charge of uranium enrichment services), and played an active role in implementing the first sales of uranium enrichment services from the USSR to France. This cooperation has continued and grown since the first contracts in 1974, and CIFAL is now the representative for AREVA-NC in Russia.
CIFAL also continued to develop in the 70’s and 80’s in multiple areas of the light industry and food sectors: projects ranged from the Moscow wine bottling plant “Vinozavod” to a variety of factories producing baby-food, rennet, textiles, luggage and other goods.
Three generations of CIFAL presidents at the reception for the company’s 50th anniversary
From left to right : Gilles REMY, Jacques MENDELOVICI and Pierre DETOEUF
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