Page 65 - UKRRptOct20

9.1.2 ​Automotive sector news
France’s Groupe Renault starts manufacturing cars this fall at the Zaporozhia Automobile Plant,​ UkaAVTO corporation, parent of ZAZ, announced yesterday. “ZAZ underwent a large-scale modernization in order to fully comply with the international quality standards of Groupe Renault,” UkrAVTO says, without specifying investment amounts or models to be produced. Max Missana, Eurasia managing director of Groupe Renault Export, says: “Made in Ukraine will be at the same quality level as the products of other plants of the Renault Group." In the region, Renault produces cars in Romania, Russia and Turkey. Once Ukraine’s largest car plant, ZAZ stopped producing cars in 2018. As recently as 2008, Ukraine produced 424,000 cars. Production has almost stopped. In July, Ukraine produced 172 cars – all at the Eurocar plant in Uzhgorod. Through July, ZAZ produced 26 buses. Nikolay Evdokimenko, ZAZ board chairman, says the joint venture with Renault will create jobs and contribute to the revival of car manufacturing here.
Imports of used cars from the US are returning to a pre-crisis level of 10,000 a month​, Volodymyr Kovel, co-founder of a new association to defend car importers, told Interfax-Ukraine. The association is forming in reaction to market disruption caused in February, when the Internal Affairs Ministry proposed banning imports of ‘recycling’ cars, or cars that had been in accidents. In protest, 18,000 people signed an online petition on President Zelenskiy’s website. The import and repair of lightly damaged cars from the US is expected to be a $1bn business next year. The most popular imports from North America are: Volkswagen Jetta and Passat cars assembled in Mexico, and Ford Focus and Fusion cars.
65​ UKRAINE Country Report​ October 2020 ​ ​www.intellinews.com