More carmakers resume production in Russia

More carmakers in Russia are resuming production after temporarily stopping last week. This comes as the coronavirus pandemic interrupted supply chains and led Russian authorities to declare a month-long paid national holiday until 30 April.

The Ulyanovsk automobile plant (UAZ) began restarting production lines on 9 April and will resume the assembly of cars on 13 April, says the Sollers group. According to the decree of the Ulyanovsk region government, no more than 25% of staff will be involved in the work and the engineering office will continue to work remotely. Earlier, Sollers Mazda in Vladivostok resumed car production on Monday.

Avtovaz will resume production of cars from 13 April, Kallanish notes. From 6 April only certain departments restarted working related to the development of new projects, accounting and reporting.

Automotive group Avtotor will also start work on Monday in the Kaliningrad region, after it suspended the work of the car factory in late March.

Russia’s largest heavy truck maker, Kamaz, resumed production from 6 April after consultations with federal authorities(see Kallanish passim). Some GAZ plants renewed production, while the schedule of the rest will be determined later.

Germany’s Volkswagen stopped the conveyors at its Kaluga plant, as well as the contract assembly line at the GAZ plant in Nizhny Novgorod, and postponed the restart until 17 April, the firm says.

South Korean automaker Hyundai, and Japan’s Toyota and Nissan postponed production at their plants in St. Petersburg until 30 April.

The termination of some carmakers’ activities is also due to the fact car dealerships were not included in the list of enterprises whose work is allowed during the presidential holiday, an automotive sector participant says.