The Fins to Drive Luxury Brands to Russia
Finland’s Valmet Automotive is eyeing construction of assembling facilities in the Leningrad region, which annual capacity will reach 50,000 cars. This enterprise will probably assemble the luxury brands in Russia, such as BMW, Audi, Mercedes-Benz or Lexus.
Leningrad Region’s Vice Governor Grigory Dvas met with Valmet Automotive Vice President Rainer Karjalainen to discuss construction of an assembly plant, news service of the regional governor reported yesterday. It is the question of constructing Valmet’s plant with initial annual capacity of 10,000 cars and potential extension to 50,000 cars, people in the news service said,
According to the regional briefers, Valmet has decided in principal about constructing the facilities and the final choice will be made by the end of April. In Valmet, however, they say they are just studying the project and no decisions have been taken yet.
The models that Valmet is willing to assemble in Russia haven’t been disclosed even by the regional news service. The bureaucrats say off-the-record that it could be not only the luxury brands, Porsche, for instance, that Valmet assembles in Finland. According to them, Valmet has approached “automobile consortiums constructing the plants in St. Petersburg,” offering them the facilities to assemble some of their models. But the carmakers that have built or are building the plants in St. Petersburg (Ford, General Motors, Nissan) as well as importers of premium brands (Audi, BMW, Lexus, Porsche, Mercedes-Benz) didn’t confirm interest in Valmet project yesterday.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Apr. 16, 2008
|
