Russian GAZ brings truck manufacturing to Danang

Russian GAZ brings truck manufacturing to Danang, illustration photo

Last week, in Russia, Chairman of the Danang People’s Committee Huynh Duc Tho had a working session with Gorkovsky Avtomobilny Zavod (GAZ Group), one of the largest truck manufacturers in Russia, to discuss a project to develop an assembly and manufacturing factory for its vehicles in the central city.

The leader of GAZ Group was impressed with the incentives and business environment in Danang, and affirmed that this is the right time to expand the group’s markets. He also stated that he will visit Danang this December.

Highlighting Danang’s development potential, synchronous infrastructure system, and high-quality human resources, Tho confirmed that the city will do its utmost to create a favourable and transparent investment climate to attract businesses.

GAZ has 13 modern production facilities in Russia with the rate of automation at 85 per cent, and assembly plants based in Turkey and Kazakhstan. The company produces passenger cars, trucks, buses, military vehicles, and special vehicles, exporting to more than 40 countries across the world.

At the Vietnam AutoExpo 2018 in June, Kristina Dubinina, GAZ’s sales director for Asia, said, “Vietnam is a market with high potential and growth in the coming years. In a modest assessment, sales of GAZ in this market will reach 550,000 by 2024. We are studying the possibility of establishing a joint venture to begin sales in Vietnam to identify products for local manufacturing in the future.”

At the end of 2017, the amendment protocol on supporting the production of motor vehicles in Vietnam was signed by Tran Tuan Anh, Vietnamese Minister of Industry and Trade, and Russian Ambassador Konstantin Vasilievich Vnukov.

Russian automobile manufacturers such as KAMAZ, GAZ, and UAZ will collaborate with Vietnamese partners to establish joint ventures to manufacture and assemble automobiles and trucks, all-terrain vehicles, and some specialised vehicles in Vietnam.

These joint ventures will import 2,550 completely built-up unit vehicles and 13,500 sets of automobile assembly parts to Vietnam during the 2018-2022 period completely duty-free.

“I hope these Vietnamese-Russian ventures will be successful and contribute to the development of the Vietnamese automobile industry, as well as seizing opportunities to break open the ASEAN market with its population of 640 million,” the minister stated at the signing ceremony last December.

In September 2017, following the Eastern Economic Forum in Russia, Vadim Shvetsov, general director of Sollers OJSC and UAZ OJSC, said that the group planned to set up a joint venture to manufacture and assemble automobiles in Vietnam in 2018, with an initial capacity of 1,000 vehicles per year.