Report: BMW CEO says Russia assembly plant decision postponed

MOSCOW, May 6 (PRIME) -- BMW said it had postponed a decision about whether to build an assembly plant in Russia because of the uncertainty caused by the economic crisis, which has already caused sales of its cars in the region to fall by more than 40% in March, Reuters reported on Wednesday.

"Russia is a challenge for our company and we have asked ourselves how things will go on there," Chief Executive Norbert Reithofer told reporters, adding that a decision about whether to build an assembly plant in the region had been postponed.

In mid-March, U.S. General Motors said it will cease operations in the country. It halted industrial assembly at its car plant in St. Petersburg, and will suspend contract car assembly at a plant of Russian carmaker GAZ Group in Nizhny Novgorod and withdraw Opel models and Chevrolet mass models from the market.

Sales of cars and light commercial vehicles (LCV) in Russia fell 36.3% on the year to 383,691 units in January–February, the Association of European Businesses (AEB) said earlier. The AEB expects sales of new cars and LCVs in the country to fall 24.2% to 1.89 million vehicles in 2015.

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