(Reuters) – The board of directors of Russian top carmaker AvtoVAZ approved the firm’s 2023 investment programme for just under 40 billion roubles ($585 million), Russia’s state news agency RIA reported late on Monday.
“Yes, it has been approved,” RIA quoted AvtoVAZ president Maxim Sokolov as saying.
Renault sold its majority stake in Avtovaz to the Russian state for reportedly just one rouble ($0.0165) earlier this year, but with a six-year option to buy it back. The same state institution snapped up Nissan’s assets this month for one euro.
In the months following the start of the Russian invasion in Ukraine in February, AvtoVAZ has cut production and was offering some workers voluntary redundancy due to lack of components.
Earlier in December, Russia’s Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation reported that the board of directors of AvtoVAZ approved the company’s production plan for 2023 at the level of 401,000 vehicles, RIA said.
By Dec. 6, the carmaker had produced 200,000 vehicles this year, according to a statement published on the website of the company’s Lada model.
($1 = 68.3500 roubles)
(Reporting in Melbourne by Lidia Kelly; Editing by Christopher Cushing)
