TOKYO, September 18 (Itar-Tass) — The Japanese Honda Company intends to start assembling its cars in Russia. The leading Japanese business newspaper Nikkei reported on Sunday that this second largest Japanese car company already submitted a plan to the Russian side and started talks.
The newspaper writes that the company plans to open an assembly line in Russia for one of its models. It is supposed to put out annually 30,000-50,000 cars annually at the first stage; Japanese investments in the project will total several billion yen (Eds: one billion yen tops 13 million US dollars at the current exchange rate).
An area for building the first Honda factory in Russia has not been fixed yet; it is planned to find a place for it somewhere in the Primorye Territory.
Until now, Honda imported its cars to Russia from Japan, the US and Europe. However, its competitors Toyota and Nissan already started the output of cars in Russia. Mazda will join them in 2012. Nikkei stresses that “the Russian auto market has already overcome aftermaths of the global financial crisis, showing a considerable growth last year; taking into account this circumstance, this is very promising for the Japanese car industry”.