Azia Avto to broaden partnerships

business and economy

By SRI ⋅ September 5, 2008 ⋅

(SRI) - The Kazakh car producer Azia Avtois to seal its agreement with Russia’s AvtoVAZ to sell a blocking share to the latter on September 22 in Aktau at a forum of Kazakh and Russian border regions’ chiefs, Azia Avto president Erzhan Mandiev said in an interview with Interfax.

Mandiev also said that the company plans to start manufacturing other types of cars as part of its new venture. Azia Avto will have two new partners, Nissan and Renault, after it signs the strategic partnership agreement with AvtoVAZ.

Yet, Mandiev does not expect the existing partnerships with Czech Skoda and U.S. Chevrolet to suffer.

“In spite of our widely announced deal with AvtoVaz we are determined to maintain the relations with other partners, General Motors and Skoda Auto. Thus, in September we are planning to launch the production of a new generation model of the Octavia cars, next year we may start assembling Superb model cars. By the end of the year we intend to commence the production of six or seven new models by General Motors, namely Cadillac and Hummer,” he said in an interview with Interfax.

Additionally, Azia Avto also plans to start assembling new models of Russian Lada cars.