OREANDA-NEWS. September 16, 2009. Russian automotive plants which produce passenger cars outstripped AvtoVAZ in terms of output and manufactured a half of all vehicles in the country from January till August 2009, said preliminary data from ASM-Holding.

All Russian auto makers slashed car manufacture by 62.6% to 368,187 vehicles in 8M09. Furthermore, the output of foreign cars in Russia is falling at a slower pace than the production of Russian brands. The manufacture of domestic brands (produced by AvtoVAZ, GAZ, Izhavto and UAZ) sank 68.3% y-o-y in January-August, while the turnout of foreign makes decreased only 54.2%. 8M09 production of foreign makes (181,193 vehicles) nearly reached the number of purely Russian autos (186,994).

The portion of foreign makes in the country’s production volumes reached 49%, while this indicator was 37% a year ago. Russia’s primary auto maker AvtoVAZ slashed car output by more than 3 times to 173,000 from 535,000 vehicles. AvtoVAZ manufactured less than a half of all vehicles produced in Russia (47%), while its share was equal to nearly 55% in January-August 2008.