PSA Finalizes Kazakh Assembly Deal

VIENNA – PSA Peugeot Citroen finalizes an agreement for local production with Kazakh assembler AgromashHolding and the Kazakh Ministry of Industry and New Technologies.

Under the deal originally announced in March, AgromashHolding will assemble Peugeot 301, 3008 and 508 cars, as well as Partner light-commercial vehicles, at its plant in Kostanay.

“The Kazakh market shows an impressive speed of growth during the last few years,” Bernd Schantz, PSA managing director-Russia, Ukraine and other CIS countries, says in a statement. “According to forecasts, the total market will reach 230,000 units in 2017.”

Last year 87,661 cars were sold in Kazakhstan, none of which were Peugeot or Citroen models.

The Peugeot vehicles will be produced by AgromashHolding from France- and Spain-sourced knocked-down kits.

Plans call for output to get under way in July. Initially, the partners expect to make about 4,000 vehicles per year.

The Peugeot 301 sedan, the lowest-cost Peugeot car to be built in Kazakhstan, will start at $16,000, Andrey Lavrentyev, member of the board of AgromashHolding and president of AllurGroup, says during the signing ceremony in the Kazakhstan capital, Astana.

“We are direct competitors of Korean cars,” Lavrentyev is quoted as saying. “Direct competitors (of the Peugeot 301) are (the) Hyundai Accent (and) Kia Rio.”

Sales of locally built Peugeots will be launched in September by AllurGroup, which controls AgromashHolding. In addition, the Peugeot 408 sedan will be sourced from Russia as a completely built-up import.

Peugeot sales in Kazakhstan ultimately are expected to top 10,000 units annually.