Sberbank opens 3.6 bln ruble loan facility for GAZ Group for assembling VW vehicles
MOSCOW. May 17 (Interfax) - Top Russian bank Sberbank and GAZ Group signed an agreement in February 2012 for opening a loan facility at a limit of 3.655 billion rubles, the group said in materials on Thursday.
The funds were provided for financing investment in the framework of contracted vehicle assembly.
GAZ said in a presentation that the total value in key projects in the next 18 months will come to 15.9 billion rubles, of which 12 billion rubles will be invested in 2012.
Around 3.7 billion rubles will go to a project for the contract production with VW, as well as contract assembly with Daimler - 1.1 billion rubles, and GM - 300 million rubles.
Volkswagen hopes to produce around 110,000 vehicles by 2014 at GAZ's facility in Nizhny Novgorod. A total of 6,000 VW vehicles will be assembled this year, of which over 2,000 units have been produced already. These vehicles will be sold on the Russian market.
The production plan for 2013 is 60,000 units.
Investment in three VW models at GAZ will come to 200 million euro, 85 million euro of which will be invested by the Russian group. Investment will, in part, go to modernizing capacity.
GAZ Group is one of Russia's leading producers of vehicles. The company's main automobile product is the GAZel-Business light commercial vehicle. The group includes 18 enterprises in 10 Russian regions.
The group reached an agreement with VW for assembling vehicles in Nizhny Novgorod (production commenced in November 2011). Similar agreements have been signed with Daimler and General Motors.
OJSC Russian Machines, which is part of Oleg Deripaska's Basic Element Ltd Group, owns around 73% in GAZ Group.