TOKYO, January 30 (Itar-Tass) – Japan’s car giant Toyota has forwarded the first vessel through a new regular load waterline from the Mikawa seaport (Aichi prefecture, Honshu island) to Vladivostok, the Japanese company said on Wednesday.
At the end of 2012, the Japanese major carmaker launched the new regular waterline to link Japan with Russia’s Far East. The car giant plant to use of sea-line for the delivery of car assembly units and parts for its Land Cruiser Prado mid-size four-wheel drive vehicles, the assembly of which is being performed at the joint venture of Russia’s Sollers company and Japan’s Mitsui - Sollers-Bussan. The monthly cargo traffic of the line will be at about 1,000 containers. It will take four days to arrive from Mikawa to Vladivostok.
In March 2011, Japan’s Toyota signed a contract with Sollers for the assembly of its Land Cruiser Prado models at the joint venture in Vladivostok. It is planned that the enterprise will produce about 25,000 cars a year.
At the end of the previous week, the assembly line for the production of the Land Cruiser Prado models was commissioned. Taking part in the ceremony were Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov, President of the Republic of Tatarstan Rustam Minnikhanov and Governor of the Primorye Territory Vladimir Miklushevsky.
“In September 2012, Russian President Vladimir Putin commissioned the production of Mazda cars in Vladivostok,” Shuvalov said back then, adding, “After a few months merely, we open the new production line.” The first deputy prime minister stressed that new plans aimed at the expansion of the car manufacturing in the Primorye territory are in the focus. In his words, the plans of the kind will be supported by the government.
According to Governor Vladimir Miklushevsky, the Sollers company in Vladivostok plans to raise the car output to 180,000 vehicles a year, as well as to organize the full cycle of production, including the manufacture of car-bodies and their painting.
The Sollers-Bussan joint car-assembly venture was established in 2011 and was located in the territory of the Sollers-Far East plant in Vladivostok. At the initial stage, the plant’s output is planned at 1,000 cars a month.
“The commercial production [of the above-mentioned model] will start later, when all appropriate processes are fully coordinated and the shop is ready for work from the technological point of view,” Chairperson of the Sollers-Far East Public Relations Deparment Varvara Nasyr said, giving no information about the exact date.
Sollers-Bussan is the third car-manufacturing facility in Vladivostok. In 2009, the Sollers-Far East plant was commission in the capital of the Primorye territory. The facility assemblies SsangYong sport utility vehicles of various models. In 2012, the plant produced about 29,000 cars.
In 2012, the MAZDA SOLLERS Manufacturing Rus started the commercial production of its models. The company produces the Mazda CX-5 crossovers and Mazda 6 sedans.