PSA Peugeot Citroen is still deciding to build a car plant in Russia either on its own or wih a partner, a spokeswoman for the French automaker’s London office said late on Thursday.
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Dominique Morgan was responding to an earlier Vedomosti newspaper report relayed by Reuters that PSA would build a EUR200m euro ($US255m) assembly plant in the country because of booming demand for foreign cars.
Morgan declined to discuss planned investment or output but indicated PSA would make an announcement in a few weeks.
Citing a government source, the paper had said PSA would open the plant in 2009 to assemble the Citroen C4 and the Peugeot 307.
The paper said Russia’s economy ministry had already approved the investment plan, under which the firm would pay reduced import duty, and the energy ministry and customs agency were likely to approve it soon.
Morgan said a pending end-of-summer deadline that would change the way automakers paid import duty on components had led to a rush of applications to the government, even though plans may not have been finalised, hence the citing of government sources in the story.
Reuters noted that, in June, a report in Kommersant newspaper said the firm was considering building a Russian plant capable of turning out 50,000 cars a year. PSA at the time declined to confirm the size of the investment or the plant’s capacity, but said the plant under consideration would serve only the Russian market.
PSA as yet has no production facilities in Russia, but has a joint venture facility [with Toyota] in the Czech Republic and a plant in Slovakia.
