OREANDA-NEWS. President of AvtoVAZ, Bo Andersson, asked the members of the Committee of the Union of Russian Engineering Development of cooperation and localization of production in the automotive industry, which he recently co-chaired, to offer the Russian government to increase import duties on imported cars.

"As a foreigner, I can say that in some cases our import duty is too low," - he said. As an example, Mr. Andersson has led the United States, Brazil and China, which protect much more actively the domestic industry.

"We must understand clearly global trends in the automotive industry and to understand where we are, as the automotive industry in Russia – is one of the leading industries, and the number of workers in this sector - is more than 700 thousand people”, - he said. – “Nevertheless, the Russian car industry is moving forward. For example, Togliatti automaker improved the quality of cars by about 50%. We could not do it without a strong supply base, among which AvtoVAZ has 724 companies in Russia”. 

According to Bo Andersson, every working day AvtoVAZ gives to suppliers 636 million Rubles. "It turns out that this year for the purchase of spare parts we will spend 140 billion. The cost of our workforce at AvtoVAZ – is 100 million Rubles per a day. For the suppliers we spend several times more, and we will never be successful without successful, competitive, innovative and high-tech suppliers", - summed Boo Andersson.