Russian-Chinese JV in Primorye to assemble 500 FAW trucks in 2018, 2,000 in 2019
VLADIVOSTOK. Nov 14 (Interfax) - Yubo-Sumotori Production Company, a joint venture in Primorye between Russia's Sumotori Group and China's First Automobile Works (FAW), plans to assemble 500 trucks under the FAW brand in 2018, the regional administration said in a press release, citing Sumotori head Vitaly Verkeyenko.
"We plan to put the first commercial batch onto the market before the end of the year. The parts are now at the border. We're assembling the automobiles using foreign components. We plan to already assemble 500 trucks next year and 2,000 in 2019. We're producing 6x4 and 8x4 dump trucks," Verkeyenko said during a visit to the plant by acting Governor Andrei Tarasenko.
Tarasenko said that Yubo-Sumotori's products should also be exported, not just sold in Russia. "We need to explore the issue with the federal center, so that they take your vehicles and do turnover faster, so that they ship from us, not from Europe. Vehicles [...] precisely for quarries, will be useful at construction sites," he said.
Yubo-Sumotori entered into an agreement in December 2016 to operate as a resident of the Free Port of Vladivostok.
The first stage of the project involved the formation of the joint venture and start of sales of FAW trucks imported from China. Investment in the first stage totaled 28 million rubles. The second stage involves assembling FAW trucks at Sumotori's facility in Artyom. The third stage calls for increasing localization, assembling major components and building a new plant.