In 2008 about 600,000 foreign cars will be assembled in Russia

The analytical agency �AUTOSTAT� in its new marketing report about the prospects of the Russian auto market has reduced the assembly forecast of passenger foreign cars from 640,000 to 600,000 units for this year. The new forecast takes into account the results of January-October (517,000 units), the current assembly rates and the intentions of some assembly enterprises to shut down their assembly lines in the second half of December.
Since the 15th of December the JV �GM-AVTOVAZ� will shut down its assembly line because of the overstock. Since the same date the assembly conveyer of the Moscow plant �Avtoframos� will be shut down as well. The assembly of Ford Focus in Vsevolozhsk and Kia Spectra in Izhevsk is significantly lagging behind from the annual plan. In Nizhny Novgorod the production plan of Volga Siber was corrected for this year because of the crisis from the earlier declared 20,000 units to 3,000-4,000 units.
Experts do not exclude that in the nearest two-three weeks there will be information about the pre-term year ending at some other assembly enterprises. Moreover, in the fourth quarter all traditional Russian enterprises corrected their monthly assembly plans towards reduction. For example, AVTOVAZ will reduce the earlier planned production at 7,000-8,000 cars for this year at the expense of Saturdays� days off in the 4th quarter and three non-work days in December (the 29th-31st).
Analysts state that at year-end 46 percent of the Russian market of new cars will fall on the share of local assembly and the import share will be a bit higher - 54 percent.