OREANDA-NEWS. "GAZ Group" plans to increase sales and production of light commercial vehicles in 2018 compared to 2017 by 10%, said the president of the GAZ Group Vadim Sorokin. As a result of 2017, sales of light commercial vehicles GAZ grew by 5% up to 58.6 thousand units.

By commenting on plans for other types of vehicles that the group produces, he noted that "we see very positive trends in demand for buses." "We were well prepared for the potential need for these cars associated with the World Cup ... The need of the Russian market for the year is about 3 thousand buses of urban type, not including minibuses and not including buses PAZ and Vector. Among these 3 thousand buses we produce about 2.1-2.2 thousand buses, the rest ones are divided between KAMAZ, MAZ and Volga Bus, said Mr.Sorokin. He did not specify the number of buses that will be delivered to cities for the 2018 World Cup.

In addition, Vadim Sorokin said that in 2018 GAZ Group plans to allocate about 6 billion rubles for the development of the model range development. "Last year we produced and updated 15 of our models. This year the plans will be no less ambitious," - he said.

The president of GAZ Group explained that this year one of the new products will be a Sadko Next truck with a right-hand drive for the Asia-Pacific region, Gazelle with a Volkswagen engine, and Ural for mixed use without a front drive axle to provide construction and municipal services.