OREANDA-NEWS. In 2015, Kaliningrad plant "Avtotor" plans to produce about 80 thousand cars against 184,500 cars of the last year. In an interview with "RBK" the chairman of the board of directors of the investment group "Avtotor", Vladimir Shcherbakov, said about it by noting that the company operates under the requirements of the market. Thus, the production at "Avtotor" may fall by more than 56% this year.

At the same time, according to Mr.Scherbakov, delays at Kaliningrad plant are not planned yet. "But if we had worked 12 hours, seven days a week, then now we have five days in one shift”, - he said. Due to the decline in production "Avtotor" is forced to cut 500 employees, which is, first of all, connected with the termination of cooperation with General Motors, for which it was produced the last cars in March. As Mr.Scherbakov stated, the total capacity of "Avtotor" is designed for 250,000 vehicles, among which up to 130 thousand cars were produced for GM. The company is currently in talks with potential partners about downloading of free capacity, but V.Scherbakov refused to reveal these automakers.

Meanwhile, "Avtotor" adjusts plans to implement a project to create an automobile cluster in the Kaliningrad region, involving the creation of capacities for the production of a full cycle of not less than 250 thousand cars per year, as well as the production of automotive components. "Earlier we planned to create five full-fledged automobile plants already in 2018, and about 15 plants for the production of automotive components by 2020, today we are reviewing these plans – we plan to build only two automobile plants by 2018. This decision is risky, but necessary”, - said Mr.Scherbakov. - Investment in the currency is declined 4-5 times. Initially, in 2012, under the future growth of the market it was planned 90 billion Rubles for the construction of only plants without infrastructure, now it is 30-40 billion. But it is on the other courses. Construction of the remaining plants and related with it investments is shifted to 2018-2020 years”.