MOSCOW, January 3. /TASS/. Production is expected to restart at the former Volkswagen car maker, which now belongs to the Russian company Art Finance, in the first half of 2024, Russian Deputy Prime Minister, Industry and Trade Minister Denis Manturov said in an interview with TASS at the venue of the Russian government’s Coordination Center at the Russia International Exhibition and Forum.

Manturov said that the company had found a foreign technological partner.

"<...> The company (Art-Finance - TASS) owns the Volkswagen plant in Kaluga, for which an industrial foreign partner has been found. In Kaluga, production of the first batch is due to start in the first half of 2024," Manturov said.

In May 2023, German automaker Volkswagen completed the sale of its Russian assets to the local investor Art-Finance LLC for 125 million euros.

The plant in Kaluga has a production capacity of 225,000 cars per year. Before the spring of 2022, the plant produced Volkswagen Polo, Volkswagen Tiguan and Skoda Rapid cars. The German company also had a gasoline engine plant producing 150,000 engines per year.