Belarus hopes to set up production at Volvo plant in Russia - ambassador

MINSK. July 3 (Interfax) - Belarus is eager to form joint manufacturing ventures in Russia and is foremost interested in doing so at plants that make farm machinery or passenger vehicles, such as the Volvo plant in Kaluga, the country's ambassador to Russia, Dmitry Krutoi said.

"The Volvo truck plant is a completely new turn-key plant. We could easily set up production there of either MAZ trucks or passenger buses, or electric transport," Krutoi said on TV channel Belarus-1.

He said this issue was discussed when Kaluga Region's governor visited Belarus and met with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.

"There is a list of properties [in Russia] that we are interested in and that we can use. Foremost, of course, we are interested in - and we discussed this at the level of governments - plants that produced either farm machinery or passenger vehicles: tractors, combines, trucks," Krutoi said.

He said negotiations are already being held on setting up such production and Russia is willing to provide these facilities "virtually for free, as long as there is manufacturing there, jobs are preserved, competencies are maintained and a final product is made."

Kaluga Region Governor Vladislav Shapsha said at the beginning of this year that auto plants located in the region were discussing launching production.