| Other Photos |
 |
|
 |
Peugeot Citroen to Construct Carmaker in Kaluga
PSA Peugeot Citroen has chosen Kaluga for constructing its carmaker in Russia. The global partner of French consortium, Japanese Mitsubishi, that is to ink the respective agreement with Economic Development Ministry till this year-end will build its plant also in Kaluga. These are the last projects implemented in Russia by foreign automobile blockbusters under the industrial assembly provisions. Their execution is expected to make the country Europe’s biggest car market worth $100 billion by 2010.
Russia’s plant of PSA Peugeot Citroen will be built in Kaluga, the consortium announced yesterday. Peugeot Citroen sealed the respective agreement with the RF Economic Development Ministry far back in July but was long unable to choose between the Kaluga and Nizhni Novgorod regions.
Another agreement, this time between Kaluga authorities and Peugeot Citroen, will be made early in 2008, and the plans are to construct facilities for C-class models by 2010. Peugeot Citroen is willing to sell 100,000 cars in Russia in the first year of plant’s operation, stepping up the annual sales to 300,000 later on.
Kaluga’s choice of the French consortium signals its global partner, Mitsubishi, will construct the plant also there. Mitsubishi sealed the intention memorandum with the RF Economic Development Ministry past December, and a source close to the company said last week that it would enter into an industrial assembly agreement by this year-end. The project budget for building facilities with the annual capacity of 50,000 cars is estimated at $220 million. Russia’s office of Mitsubishi couldn’t be reached for comment yesterday and people in the Rolf Group (Russia’s distributor of Mitsubishi) didn’t comment on the plans either.
Mitsubishi will be the last one to benefit from industrial assembly agreement. Russia’s authorities introduced this practice in summer of 2005 and terminated it November 10, but the intention memorandum allows making an exception for Mitsubishi.
Overall, 22 investment agreements with foreign carmakers and 46 memoranda with component producers had been concluded since August 2005, said Dmitry Levchenkov, deputy chief of investment department at Economic Development Ministry. By 2015, Levchenkov went on, the projects will yield over $6 billion in direct investments exclusively and roughly $4.8 billion of the amount will be invested in car assembly.
In the Economic Development Ministry, they forecast foreign carmakers to produce over 1.3 million cars after reaching project capacities in 2010. “Russia will be making and selling up to 4 million cars worth up to $100 billion,” Levchenkov specified, signaling the size of the country’s market will double in two years.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Dec. 28, 2007
|
|
|
