MOSCOW, January 19. /TASS/. Russia’s top car maker Avtovaz plans to boost exports at least 1.5-fold this year, according to the company’s Executive Vice-President for sales and marketing Jan Ptacek.

Last year Avtovaz exported around 20,000 cars, while this year’s target is "to substantially increase export supplies," he said.

According to Ptacek, the traditional markets of CIS countries are the priority areas for company’s export sales.

In 2016, the company sold almost 266,300 Lada cars, a 1% decrease compared with 2015. In December, Avtovaz car sales amounted to 27,630 cars, a 17.8% increase year-on-year.

According to the company, last year the share of Lada cars on the local market of light vehicles accounted to 20% versus 17.8% in the previous year. In December, the share of Lada cars went up to 20.4% from 17.2%.

The Association of European Businesses (AEB) reported earlier an 11% decrease in car and LCV sales in annual terms in Russia to 1.42 mln units for 2016 and a 0.9% decline to 146,000 vehicles for December 2016. For 2017, AEB expects a 4% rise in sales year-on-year to 1.48 mln cars.