Kazakhstan's Astana Motors building plant in Almaty to manufacture Changan, Chery, Haval vehicles

ALMATY. Nov 15 (Interfax) - Astana Motors has begun construction on a factory in Almaty to produce vehicles under the brands Changan, Chery, and Haval, and investments will total over 100 billion tenge, which is more than $217 million.

Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev gave a symbolic start to construction on Tuesday, the Kazakh presidential press service said.

The factory to produce vehicles using the complete knock-down assembly method should be launched in the fourth quarter of 2024.

The production floor will have an area of over 100,000 square meters. There are plans to build separate workshops for welding and assembly for each of the three brands.

The production capacity of the new factory will be over 90,000 vehicles per year, and it will create 2,200 jobs.

Astana Motors is the official distributer of Hyundai, Subaru, Haval, Chery, Changan, Golden Dragon, Foton, and some other brands of passenger and commercial vehicles in Kazakhstan, as well as the exclusive importer of BMW, Mini, and BMW Motorrad. The company has already built two enterprises in Kazakhstan, a factory manufacturing Hyundai passenger vehicles and a factory to produce Hyundai commercial vehicles.

Astana Motors is a part of Astana Group.

The official exchange rate for November 15 is 459.74 tenge/$1.