Russia’s biggest automaker to jump-start production next week
Major Russian car manufacturer AvtoVAZ has announced that after more than a two-week shutdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic it will resume production on May 18.
“Due to the virus situation, work will be organized according to a safe schedule to avoid crowds of people in transport and at checkpoints. The start of shifts on the assembly lines and office staff work schedules will be timed,” the company said. Starting from June 29, AvtoVAZ will switch over to a four-day work week.
Production of cars at AvtoVAZ was suspended from April 29 due to the spread of coronavirus infection in Russia, which led to a drop in sales.
The largest car manufacturer in Russia and Eastern Europe, AvtoVAZ produces nearly one million vehicles a year. It already has a stable market share in the CIS countries and also exports cars to Germany, Iran, Syria, Egypt, and Hungary. The carmaker intends to expand to the Czech Republic, Mongolia, and South-East Asia. AvtoVAZ recently started exporting vehicles to China and the United Arab Emirates.
The AvtoVAZ Group is part of the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance and produces full-cycle cars under four brands – Lada, Renault, Nissan and Datsun.
In 2019, Lada cars were named among the world’s top 50 best-selling brands by analytics agency Focus2move. Export sales of the Lada brand grew by 57 percent to 38,050 cars last year. These were sold in 34 countries, including Turkey, Tunisia, Chile and Cuba.
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