Kazakhstan’s Asia Avto Launches Chevrolet Exports to Russia

VIENNA – Asia Avto, the Kazakh car assembler based in Ustj-Kamenogorsk, exports its first shipment of Chevrolets to Russia.

The initial 96 Chevrolet Captiva cross/utility vehicles are being sent to Russia even though the same model is built locally from semi-knocked-down kits by contract assembler Avtotor in Kaliningrad.

“We have decided to bring a batch of vehicles from our partner's assembly plant in Kazakhstan to meet customers' active demand for this model,” Sergey Lepnukhov, General Motors’ spokesman in Russia, tells WardsAuto in an email. “We may also use this practice in future if the market demands it.”

Asia Avto says the homologation of the Kazakh-made Captiva in Russia was reached in a record time of three months.

In addition to the Captiva, Asia Avto builds other Chevrolet, Kia, Lada and Skoda models from SKD kits.

In related news, Kazakh commercial-vehicle assembler Hyundai Auto Trans is exporting Kazakhstan-assembled Hyundai HD78 and HD120 trucks to Eastern Russia this year for the first time. The company launched exports to Belarus in 2012.

Kazakhstan, Russia and Belarus are members of a trade pact.