Downtime of former Volkswagen plant in Kaluga extended until end of March - AGR

KALUGA. Feb 29 (Interfax) - The former Volkswagen automobile plant in Kaluga will remain idle past February 29, the primary trade union organization of Volkswagen Group Rus LLC said.

"All employees will need to arrive at the plant on March 1, 2024 to familiarize themselves with the next period of downtime and how it will be organized," the union wrote on its official page on the Vkontakte social network.

AGR Automotive Group told Interfax that the plant's downtime will be extended until March 31 for reasons beyond the employer's control.

"It will apply only to those employees not involved in preparations to launch production, logistics work, training and work on maintaining the plant's infrastructure," the group said. "As the launch of production approaches, the number of plant employees that are idle is steadily falling," it added.

Earlier, the trade union announced that the plant's downtime would last until February 29 of this year.

The governor of the Kaluga region, Vladislav Shapsha, said in early January that the car plant in Kaluga was expected to resume operations in the first half of this year.

German automaker Volkswagen sold its Russian assets to Art-Finance LLC, a division of the Avilon dealer holding, in May 2023 for 125 million euros.

The car plant, located in Kaluga's Grabtsevo Industrial Park, has production capacity of 225,000 cars per year. Until the spring of 2022, it produced Volkswagen Polo, Volkswagen Tiguan and Skoda Rapid models. The German company also operated a gasoline engine plant in Kaluga with capacity of 150,000 units per year.