Head of Avtotor Gorbunov: the concern is ready to continue working with BMW, Hyundai and Kia

MOSCOW, November 22 – RIA Novosti. Valery Gorbunov, chairman of the holding board, said in an interview with RIA Novosti that Kaliningrad Avtotor is ready to continue cooperation with German automaker BMW and South Korean Hyundai and Kia, despite plans to assemble the cars of new partners in the enterprise. .

At the same time, Gorbunov confirmed that Avtotor’s cooperation with these automakers is now officially suspended.

“We won’t throw the water with the child if they want to come back. It’s been 25 years since the joint debut of the first car this year. Of course, we are ready to continue cooperation in a mutually beneficial way. There is good prospects in our plans and we will be ready if it still happens,” he said.

“We have and will have the capacities to provide regardless of the appearance of new partners. New partners will not come out immediately with a high occupancy factor, but everything will happen gradually as the market is driven by products. If at different times from Kia and Hyundai it is more than 12% of the Russian automotive market We’ve borrowed up to 18, it’s very difficult to get such market share right away with new partners – which is still declining – very difficult,” he said. Additional.

Gorbunov noted that Avtotor has already found new assembly partners, that we have mentioned three new brands so far, but that the number may increase in the future.

Autoholding “Avtotor” was founded in 1994 in Kaliningrad. The enterprise became the first in Russia to start the production of cars of foreign brands. Production has been carried out since May 1997, the capacity of the factory is about 250 thousand cars per year. Until the spring of 2022, Avtotor produced mainly models of the German brand BMW, as well as South Korean Kia and Hyundai, at the moment the assembly of cars of these brands is suspended.