Magna International plans to double sedan output in Russia next year as it seeks to capitalise on demand from the country’s emerging middle class while cutting jobs elsewhere.


The Canadian parts and contract-assembly company aims to roll out as many as 150,000 vehicles based on a previous-generation Chrysler Sebring as part of a partnership with Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska’s GAZ, co-chief executive officer Siegfried Wolf told Bloomberg News.


Magna is expanding in Russia as declining US auto sales lower demand for parts there. The company, which has a Russia production target this year of between 60,000 and 80,000 units, has spent “a couple of hundred million of dollars” in the country on ventures to supply automakers in St. Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod and Kaluga near Moscow, Wolf told the news agency.