OREANDA-NEWS. May 15, 2009. Exports from AvtoVAZ will halve in 2009, the company’s manager said and added that as a result of the crisis the car maker has begun to lose key foreign markets. “This is pent-up demand. Potential clients are reluctant to spend money on cars, since something else could happen”, Director for Export Petr Chechushkin said.

According to him, AvtoVAZ projects export to decline to 50,000 cars from 106,500 last year. A newspaper reported Thursday quoting Executive VP of AvtoVAZ Jan Vensan that the automotive company’s total sales in 2009 could drop 20-25% to 470,000-500,000 cars. Chechushkin said that since the beginning of the year the company has managed to export some 20,000 cars vs. nearly 35,000 cars in the same period last year.

AvtoVAZ is mainly focused on CIS markets and Ukraine, where the economy has been severely hit by the crisis, accounts for more than 50% of exports. “Ukraine has started to import very few cars due to the crisis”, Chechushkin complained. AvtoVAZ projects deliveries to Ukraine to drop to 30,000-35,000 cars in 2009 from 60,000 cars last year.