Combine (enterprise)

Combine (Russian: Комбинат) is a term for industrial business groups,[1] conglomerates or trusts in the former socialist countries. Examples include VEB Kombinat Robotron, an electronics manufacturer, and IFA, a manufacturer of vehicles, both in East Germany, and the Erdenet copper combine in Mongolia.

One of the 17,000 workers at the Kombinat Robotron in the German Democratic Republic in 1987 working to produce typewriters

It has several related forms:

1. A large industrial enterprise that combines several different enterprises that are related to each other by a technological process or through an administration. Example: a metallurgy combine combines all forms of production such as factories, mines and other to produce steel sheets.
2. A combination of educational-developmental institutions of different levels such as an institute and a tekhnikum, day care and kindergarten (child combine).
3. Combination of various enterprises as one of the forms of monopoly.

The term (German: Schulkombinat) was also used for a type of middle schools in rural countryside until the 10th grade in East Germany. It was established at the beginning of the 1960s following the need for modernisation of school houses and a more comprehensive education.