OREANDA-NEWS. April 14, 2011. KAMAZ Vectra Motors Limited Joint Venture (KVML) 51% owned by OJSC KAMAZ has recently celebrated the first anniversary from the date of its production startup.

It should be recalled that KAMAZ Vectra Motors Limited Indo-Russian Joint Venture was officially opened in February 2010 in the city of Hosur, the state of Tamil Nadu. For a year, the first 150 vehicles have been assembled there. Also, the enterprise has got its branched trade-and-service network consisting of 12 service centers. In October, KVML signed 11 cooperation agreements with dealer companies. The area on which these signers operate makes 87% of the whole territory of India. Besides, KAMAZ Vectra Motors Limited has got its first overseas dealer – Lhachhen Mineral Industry from the city of Thimphu, Bhutan. The company has carried on negotiations with large corporate clients, mostly with manufacturers of special-purpose machinery whose full capacity is over 1,000 vehicles per year. The company plans to sell 1,250 KAMAZ vehicles on the market within a period from April 2011 to March 2012. And these are only the first steps to achieve an ambitious goal – to attain the company’s projected capacity in 2015 (gradually increasing the assembly volumes to 5,000 vehicles).

Since the first days of its activity, the joint venture has localized more than 50 types of automotive parts and units, including Apollo tires, wheels, Cummins engines, ZF gear boxes and steering boosters, Hyva power take-offs and tipping equipment, etc. Whereas initially 100% of components were imported, the current level of production localization and the use of units produced in India is unprecedented now – to date, Indian KAMAZ trucks are 71% assembled of local components (it is planned to increase the share of localization of automotive components to 80% or more in 2011). With the support of the Automotive Component Manufacturers Association of India, more than 500 companies from various regions of the country contribute to this process of localization supplying components not only for the JV, but also for the main production plant of OJSC KAMAZ in Russia to the sum of more than 2 million USD per year. It will help to expand the model range of trucks assembled by KVML. It will include KAMAZ vehicles with Euro-3 engines: the KAMAZ-6540 (8x4) dump truck, the KAMAZ-6540 (8x4) high-sided vehicle, the KAMAZ-6540 (8x4) concrete mixer, the KAMAZ-6520 (6x4) dump truck, the KAMAZ-5460 (4x2) prime mover, the KAMAZ-6460 (6x4) prime mover.

The company plans not only to fill the Indian car market with commercial vehicles, but also to sell KAMAZ trucks to neighboring Asian countries where trucks are in demand too.