Hyundai is negotiating the purchase of GM plant in St. Petersburg

Hyundai interested actively in GM, which has been idle since July 2015 in St. Petersburg. The fact that the Korean manufacturer is negotiating the purchase of this enterprise, reported the TASS agency, referring to a statement by Vice Governor Yevgeny Yelin.

Such negotiations seem quite logical and logical to auto business experts. Today, the release of Korean cars at their plant in St. Petersburg is divided between two brands - KIA and Hyundai, and there is clearly not enough available capacity for both manufacturers. The site in Shushary has capacities of about 100 thousand cars per year and great potential for future development.

Recall that the GM plant in Shushary near St. Petersburg was opened in November 2008. Initially, the production capacity of 25 thousand cars a year was laid there, during the construction it was increased up to 60 thousand (the Russian market was actively growing at that time), and with the introduction of the third shift it was easy to increase to 98 thousand units.

Making plans for the future, in the best years of its presence in the Russian market, GM planned to expand the enterprise’s capacities from 98 to 230 thousand cars in 2015, and, through the development of the automotive component base, it would achieve production localization of 60% by 2018. Do not forget the fact that at one time the GM plant was built with substantial budget support: the engineering communications of the industrial zone were built using the city budget. The investments in the project were estimated at $ 300 million.

However, the drop in demand for the models produced by the plant coincided with political factors on the international scene, and in June 2015 the assembly of Chevrolet, Opel and Cadillac cars was discontinued and the plant was mothballed.

At the same time, the leadership of the automaker promised the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation to return to this market in two to three years. In 2018, the Belarusian-British automobile enterprise ZAO Unison was actively interested in the car plant, but then the Committee of Industrial Policy and Innovation of St. Petersburg said that the Russian company, and not the Belarusian Company, would restart the GM plant in St. Petersburg.