Russia’s Avtotor plans to cut output by 50% to 90,000 cars in 2015

KALUGA, Sep 8 (PRIME) -- Russia’s Kaliningrad–based car producer Avtotor plans to cut production by about 50% on the year to up to 90,000 cars in 2015 after U.S. General Motors (GM) left the market earlier this year, President Valery Draganov said in a conference on Tuesday.

“We plan to produce up to 80,000–90,000 cars, which is a 50–60% decrease compared to what we made in 2014,” he said, adding that orders from GM loaded about half of the company’s capacities and after GM had said in March that it plans to leave the Russian market, the production capacities were frozen.

“We are working in this direction in a peaceful and thorough way, and I think that we will be able to load the capacities soon,” Draganov said.

The company also has restricted access to state support for car producers as it operates within a special economic zone in the city of Kaliningrad, he added.

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