GAZ Group Managing Company General Director Maksim Avdeyev said the group intended to launch the production of a new vehicle starting in 2009.
"We won't be able to design these trucks ourselves within such a short period of time, and therefore would like either to obtain a license or to make a vehicle with a partner," he said.
Avdeyev said GAZ Group was holding talks with U.S. carmaker DaimlerChrysler. He said talks were focusing on engines, as GAZ intended to assemble 12,000 of 55,000 Volga sedan cars in 2006 using DaimlerChrysler engines.
Cooperation could be expanded, Avdeyev said, and talks were still going on.
Vyacheslav Shmatov, director of the Nizhny Novgorod branch of managing company RusPromAvto, which holds a majority stake in GAZ Group, said GAZ intended to raise production from 197,000 to 240,000 units a year by 2010.
Speaking at an expanded board session of GAZ Group, Shmatov said the company would largely produce light commercial and medium-duty trucks. He added that truck models would be constantly modernized.
Shmatov also said GAZ Group would produce Volga sedan cars as long as there was demand for them.
"Today Volga cars are being equipped with DaimlerChrysler engines and will soon have a new interior and modernized running gear," Shmatov said, adding that GAZ would invest about 2 billion rubles (about $72 million) in the development of its production facilities.
GAZ Group was established in 2005, after RusPromAvto restructured its production assets.
Based in the central Russian city of Niznhy Novgorod, GAZ supplies vehicles to 29 countries in the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. GAZ produces about 200,000 vehicles a year.
