Azernews.Az

By Mirsaid Ibrahimzade

Azerbaijan's car industry is on the rise at the moment, since the country does everything possible to establish new production facilities in order to meet the domestic demand and organize exports.

Azerbaijani Minister of Economy Shahin Mustafayev met with Director General of Russia’s KAMAZ OJSC Sergey Kogogin, the Azerbaijani Ministry of Economy told Trend.

Mustafayev stressed that the two countries are cooperating well in all areas and the expansion of ties testifies to the political will of the Azerbaijani and Russian presidents.

Mustafayev stressed that during Russian Minister of Economic Development Maxim Oreshkin’s visit to Azerbaijan several days ago, the foundation of GAZ automobile plant was laid in the Hajigabul Industrial Site, which is a joint project of Azermash company and the Russian GAZ group of companies.

It should be noted that the volume of investments in the enterprise will be 14 million manats. At the initial stage, 100 people will be employed at the plant. The enterprise will assemble GAZel NEXT and GAZel BUSINESS light commercial vehicles, as well as GAZon NEXT medium trucks. AzEurocar, a AzerMash subsidiary, will deal with the distribution and maintenance of GAZ vehicles in Azerbaijan.

“The discussions were also held in connection with the possible cooperation between the Ganja Automobile Plant and the Russian Kamaz and Ural plants,” Mustafayev added.

An agreement was signed between KAMAZ OJSC and the Ganja Automobile Plant in February 2015. According to the agreement, Kamaz cars are assembled at the Ganja Automobile Plant.

Kogogin said that presently, Kamaz cars are produced in more than 80 countries and more than 40 Kamaz service centers operate in the CIS countries.

Stressing the attractiveness of the Azerbaijani market, Kogogin said that Kamaz OJSC is considering the possibility of producing agricultural equipment in Azerbaijan. Moreover, the regional service centers may be created for the new generation of Kamaz vehicles in Baku and the regions.

The possibilities of expanding cooperation, organizing the production of a number of spare parts in Azerbaijan were discussed during the meeting.

Azerbaijan has taken active steps to establish a car assembly to prevent currency outflows and meet the needs of the population and entrepreneurs in vehicles.

Cars, trailers and semi-trailers were produced in the country worth 106.6 million manats according to the results of 2018, which is 31 times more compared to 2017, according to the State Statistics Committee of Azerbaijan.

As many as 969 cars were produced in 2018, which is 32.4 times more than in 2017.

Such a sharp increase in the production of cars in the country was achieved due to the opening of a joint Azerbaijani-Iranian factory Khazar in the Neftchala industrial park on March 29, 2018.

By the way, starting from the current year, Khazar cars are expected to be exported, first of all to the Russian market.

In addition, the Nakhchivan facility opened in 2010 assembles eight models of Lifan passenger cars designed by China’s Lifan Group, which provides all the necessary spare parts for cars to the plant so they may be assembled in Azerbaijan under the direct supervision of Chinese automotive specialists.

Meanwhile, there is a significant potential for establishing in the country of production not only cars. As many as 297 buses were imported into the country in 2018, which is 110 units, or 58.8 percent more than in 2017, according to the data of the State Customs Committee (SCC) of Azerbaijan.

In recent years, in the direction of the automotive industry development, there is an active cooperation with the manufacturers of vehicles not only in Russia and Iran, but also in Belarus. Thus, Belkommunmash will supply four large-capacity E321 electric buses to Azerbaijan to launch a pilot electric bus route in the Ganja city in 2019, Belkommunmash Holding Management Company OJSC reported.

The growth in population size and well-being, on the one hand, and the improvement of the business climate in the country on the other, create opportunities for the development of the automotive industry in order to meet primarily domestic demand for vehicles in the country.

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