The Kaliningrad Region carmaker Avtotor and Canadian automobile part manufacturer Magna plan to establish an automobile cluster with an annual production capacity of 350,000 cars in the region, Avtotor board chairman Vladimir Shcherbakov said on Wednesday.
Speaking at a meeting on the automotive industry development conditions after Russia’s entry to the World Trade Organization (WTO), Shcherbakov said the documents on the establishment of the automobile cluster will be handed to the government by the beginning of May.
The project will be made up of plants of Avtotor’s current partners - BMW, General Motors, Kia and others.
Overall, 21 new plants are expected to be built, with six of them being full-cycle automobile manufacturing plants and 15 involved in automobile component production.
Shcherbakov said overall investment is expected at 3 billion euros ($3.9 billion), adding that the project will be implemented in two stages. The first stage is to be completed by 2016 with 14 plants, and the second one by 2018.
A new town for 50,000 residents will be built and a total of 20,000 new jobs will be created, Shcherbakov added.
Avtotor manufactures cars made from foreign parts for the world’s leading carmakers Kia Motors, BMW, GM and Opel.
