The GAZ Group has been in talks with a number of OEMs, including some Chinese manufacturers, in order to make up for the shortfall in capacity that will be left by General Motors' (GM) decision to withdraw from the Russian market, according to a Moscow Times report. GAZ's chairman Siegfried Wolf said the company would continue negotiations with a number of the companies in question in an effort to fill excess capacity left untapped by GM's exit from Russia. He said, "We have about six or seven very interested partners that would go in for production" He added, "In principle [we can bring in] as many [partners] as our capacity allows. It's at least 200,000 passenger cars and this is what we have to look at, how we will utilize this."
Significance: GAZ has contract manufacturing deals with a number of Western OEMs including Volkswagen (VW) for which it makes the VW Jetta as well as the Skoda Octavia and Yeti. However, the deal to manufacture the Chevrolet Aveo was only signed in 2013 and the start of production coincided with a dramatic slide in GM's Russian sales and production as a result of model cycle and macroeconomic factors. In reality, the numbers involved in the Aveo production deal have always been relatively insignificant with 16,000 units being manufactured in 2013, falling to 13,000 in 2014, with a final tally of just 1,118 units expected this year. Although GM has announced it was pulling out as a full range manufacturer from the Russian market earlier this year, it is likely that it would have reviewed its strategy regarding production of the model anyway.
