Russian-Japanese JV to begin building electric car facility in Primorye next year
VLADIVOSTOK. April 12 (Interfax) - Russia's Sumotori group of companies from Artem, Primorye, and Japanese Arai Shoji Co Ltd have registered a joint venture that will begin construction of a plant in Primorye for producing electric cars in the spring of 2018.
Sumotori CEO Vitaly Verkeenko announced formation of the joint venture, Prometei, on Tuesday at the gubernatorial summit of the regions of Northeast Asia in the Japanese prefecture of Tottori.
"We are working on a project, the Prometei JV has been registered, an application for residency in the Nadezhdinskaya priority development area has been submitted: construction of an electric car factory is planned there. A three-hectare site has been reserved for development of the Russian-Japanese facility, a business plan and engineering design are being mapped out. Transformation of Japanese minicars into electric cars will not entail great expense, since the technology has already been mastered. We will commence work next year, when the priority development zone infrastructure is ready," Verkeenko said.
In the initial stage, the JV plans to convert up to 5,000 used cars from Japan into electric cars each year. There are currently 1.1 million cars registered in Primorye, of which over 90% are used cars imported from Japan.
The new plant will also house the Far East's first facility for car scrappage.
The scrappage plant will initially be launched using Sumotori's existing capacity, he said.
It was reported earlier that Sumotori and Chinese First Automobile Works (FAW) created a joint venture, Yubo-Sumotori Production Company LLC, which planned to begin selling trucks produced in Primorye in the second quarter of 2017. The project will be implemented in the framework of the Free Port of Vladivostok, where Yubo-Sumotori is a resident. The plant will assemble FAW trucks at the Tekhtsentr Sumotori facility in Artem. Investment in the first stage totals 28 million rubles. Up to 2,000 trucks a year will be produced initially.
