Russia’s AvtoVAZ plans to export 20,000 Lada cars in 2023

ST. PETERSBURG, Dec 1 (PRIME) -- Russia’s largest carmaker AvtoVAZ plans to export about 20,000 Lada cars in 2023, President Maxim Sokolov told reporters on Thursday.

When asked about exports of Lada cars, he said,

“It is going on, but we export cars from the batches produced in the previous life, as they say,” he said.

“Exports are slow, these batches were produced and booked, we are selling our stocks… Our plans include exports of around 20,000 cars next year, and we expect that to happen.”

He added that exports will mainly go to Belarus, Kazakhstan, and some other CIS countries.

AvtoVAZ is ready to restart production at the SaryarkaAvtoProm plant in Kazakhstan, where it plans to deliver car kits, he said.

The company is also studying new export markets for the cars, with African countries being in the focus, he said.

At home, the company expects the market of cars and light commercial vehicles (LCVs) to widen to 800,000 vehicles in 2023 from 670,000–700,000 in 2020, Sokolov said.

He also said AvtoVAZ may close the acquisition of RN Bank from the Renault-Nissan Alliance until the end of 2022 if the process goes fast, which largely depends on the company’s partners.

“Since the Soviet times, AvtoVAZ has had a bank in its structure, called Avtovazbank. That is why transition of RN Bank into the AvtoVAZ business is a logical step of AvtoVAZ’ development, and we are in fact going on the way of picking up Renault-Nissan group’s assets located in Russia,” he said.

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