The German company Volkswagen intends to sell its plant in Kaluga, a possible buyer of the asset is the company "Asia Auto" from Kazakhstan. Two publications report this at once – Vedomosti and Gazeta.ru .
Asia Auto is a Kazakh partner of the German concern, owns the rights to produce Volkswagen and Skoda cars. The sale of the asset will save the plant and its work, and the Germans will leave the toxic market. Vedomosti notes that the German concern thus wants to try to maintain a share in one of the largest markets in Europe, while protecting itself from sanctions and reputational risks.
Sergey Burgazliev, an independent expert on the car market, in his comments to both publications, expressed the opinion that the purchase of the plant would most likely be financed by Volkswagen itself, since Asia Auto is in a pre-bankruptcy state and the company simply does not have money for such a deal. The government of Kazakhstan in this case will act as a guarantor of the deal, the expert notes.
The Kaluga plant of the German concern has been idle since March 2022, it has been operating since 2007. The capacity of the enterprise is estimated at about 225 thousand cars per year, in 2015 a workshop for the production of motors was opened on the basis of the plant (150 thousand per year). The plant produces Volkswagen and Skoda models: Tiguan, Polo, Rapid, Karoq and Kodiaq.
The Russian car market is experiencing the most colossal decline in the entire modern history of Russia: at its peak, production fell by 96.5%, and sales of new cars fell by 78.5%.