By Anna Koroleva
Vladimir Putin believes that government agencies should no longer the purchase of foreign cars but use those domestically manufactured
Aura and Aurus
During a meeting in the Kremlin on Thursday with the head of the Ministry of Industry Denis Manturov and representatives of a number of manufacturing enterprises, Vladimir Putin made a landmark statement: the country's officials should start driving domestic cars. And only on them.
As Denis Manturov emphasized in his opening remarks, the automotive industry is indeed a very important industry, which is a big multiplier for other sectors of the economy. “Here we also see a certain revival. Since April, we have been celebrating month-on-month growth. If we take June, then there is an increase of 52% compared to last year, to last June... We found a Russian beneficiary, a Russian enterprise, for almost every enterprise, and they selected industrial partners. An example of this is Moscow - Moskvich, AvtoVAZ has now opened a new site in St. Petersburg, Avtotor has resumed work in Kaliningrad ... the Sollers plant in Tatarstan.
The statement was made after the story of AvtoVAZ President Maxim Sokolov about the importance of measures to further stimulate demand. “I mean, of course, not money, it would be banal,” Mr. Sokolov noted philosophically and in this context announced his intention “to launch a new product next year - Lada Aura”.
“Already Denis Valentinovich, and Anton Germanovich Siluanov, and Konstantin Anatolyevich Chuichenko, and even Valentina Ivanovna [Matvienko] tried this car. This is such a “younger sister”, this is not Aurus, of course, but its younger, pretty and worthy sister, ”said the head of the largest Russian automobile company.
“Of course, we see large corporations, state and municipal structures, taxi companies as the main buyers of this model. Today we have provisions in the legislation that prohibit the direct purchase of foreign or low-localized cars,” Maxim Sokolov emphasized.
And then Vladimir Putin noticed the following: “Denis Valentinovich knows: ministries, the departments, the presidential affairs department have asked to continue the purchase and focus, in fact, on foreign-made cars, to continue this practice.”
“I said that this should be absolutely excluded, and all officials of the country should drive domestic cars. - said the President of the Russian Federation. - Somewhere it will be more modest than before - it's okay, on the contrary, it's even good. he stressed. “All of our l officials should understand that we need to strive for the development of domestic brands, domestic cars and other domestic products. And improving their quality be primarilyaim at this time,” concluded Vladimir Putin.
“Of course, imports are also needed, of course, we cannot and should not refuse imports in general, but some basic things should be, if we ourselves consume, focused on domestic producers,” the head of state concluded.
The one-time aggregate demand for passenger cars on the part of government agencies as such, not counting the other customers named in the conversation, is undoubtedly expressed in a very large amount. Probably quite comparable to their potential annual output. According to TASS on July 4, in July AvtoVAZ sold 27.4 thousand cars, which is more than 300 thousand in annual terms, but this automobile company is very far from the maximum. Of course, the Chinese auto industry will also rush into the fight for our state order, seeking to strengthen (more or less seriously) localization. In any case, this seems to be one of the largest import substitution projects, at least among those that are in plain sight (and not in, say, the machine tool industry). Few things can be more visible than the passenger car industry.
The time has come
“All Russian officials should exclusively drive Russian cars, be treated at ordinary clinics and hospitals, dine at public catering establishments, relax at Russian tourist facilities,” the Chairman of the Council of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation on Financial and Industrial and investment policy Vladimir Gamza.
“Only in this case, officials will strive to produce the best goods in the world and create human conditions for life for all citizens,” he is sure.
The recalling the attempts that took place many years ago to transfer officials from Mercedes to Volga cars(which, of course, many now remember), Georgy Zakrevsky, a public figure and founder of the Palladin consulting company, noted that “the times were different, we were friends with the West , and our auto industry, apart from the Volga and the Zhiguli “classics”, did not produce anything. Now, in the era of tough confrontation with the West and the almost complete withdrawal of global auto brands from Russia, such a decision no longer seems populist,” he told Expert.
"AvtoVAZ" will cope with this task quite well, Georgy Zakrevsky believes, of course, not without the help of "Moskvich", which will help promote its car with Chinese roots.
The idea to transfer domestic officials to Russian cars appeared many years ago, but was postponed for a long time due to the availability of an affordable alternative in the form of foreign cars, the press service of Otkritie Auto (Otkritie Bank's auto business unit) confirmed.
In 2015, AvtoVAZ made several cars for its own management, the company told Expert. They took the LADA Vesta as a basis, which increased the wheelbase and added all the possible options plus a leather interior. The model did not go into circulation, but recently LADA Aura based on the new generation Vesta, also with a long body and all the options, followed in its footsteps. And there are great chances that the model will remain in the production matrix and, if necessary, become a mass machine for the state apparatus.
Moskvich has recently been added to the list of cars for all categories of officials and departments, the press service of Otkritie Avto notes. The revived brand immediately offered an alternative in the form of its first model, the Moskvich 3 crossover. The car has already been taken into circulation by taxi companies and car sharing services.
For the highest administrative apparatus there is Aurus, and in three forms, they recalled in the "Auto Discovery". These are the sedan Senat, the limousine, which the president is currently using, and the latest in the lineup, the large SUV Komendant.
By the way, shortly after the meeting with the president, Andrey Pankov, general director of the Aurus company, reacted to the conversation about the auto industry that took place there. According to him, the company has all the necessary production resources to provide the state with the necessary number of executive cars.
“The Aurus plant in the Republic of Tatarstan has all the production resources to meet the state’s need for the production of domestic executive cars, as well as opportunities for further scaling up production,” he told the TASS agency.
This article origninally appeared in Russian at expert.ru