MOSCOW, November 19 (RIA Novosti) – Kaliningrad Region carmaker Avtotor and Canadian automotive parts manufacturer Magna will establish an automobile cluster in Russia’s westernmost region with annual production capacity of 250,000 cars, Avtotor said on Monday.
The agreement on the auto cluster will be signed between Avtotor Holding and Magna International Europe AG on Thursday.
“This event [the signing of the agreement] will launch the implementation of the project to create a cluster of full-profile automobile production in the Kaliningrad Region with a capacity of at least 250,000 cars a year, with the annual output of over 670 billion rubles [$21 billion],” Avtotor said in a statement.
The project will be implemented in two stages. The first stage is to be completed by 2016 with 14 plants, and the second by 2018.
Overall, the auto cluster will integrate 21 new auto plants, with six of them being full-cycle automobile manufacturing plants and 15 involved in automobile component production.
The project, estimated at 90 billion rubles ($2.9 billion), will create 20,000 new jobs and comprise plants of Avtotor’s current partners: BMW, General Motors, Kia and others.
Magna will be responsible for the engineering portion of the project
Avtotor currently manufactures cars made from imported parts for Kia Motors, BMW, GM and Opel.