Over 250 delegates at last week’s Automotive Logistics Russia conference identified infrastructure as the biggest challenge facing the Russian automotive industry today, with 57 per cent of delegates expressing concern over the country’s shortcomings in this area.
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The survey, taken at the conference in St Petersburg, also pointed towards Russia’s cumbersome customs regimes as another problem facing the sector.
Executives from across the global automotive industry gathered at the second annual Automotive Logistics Russia conference to discuss one of the world’s fastest-growing and most logistically challenging automotive markets. Russia looks set to surpass Germany as the largest automotive market in Europe by 2012, selling around four million new cars.
However, automotive logisticians and manufacturers face increasing strain as the Russian vehicle market continues to enjoy remarkable growth. Foreign automotive players investing in the Russian marketplace face a number of challenges including underdeveloped transportation and port infrastructure, a strict customs processing system and increasing prices for labour.
Ekaterina Kulbaka of RailTransAuto said that Russia needs to create the necessary infrastructure to accommodate the increasing growth of its automotive industry. Delegates at the conference expressed concern over an overall lack of investment from the Government and companies which make it difficult for suppliers to import to Russia.
Other topics to emerge from the conference included the lack of human resources and skills in the Russian automotive marketplace and that the majority of staff turnover was higher in Russia than any other territory. This lack of skills has led to difficulty in recruiting and a lower level of service quality of both logisticians and suppliers in the industry.
