U.S. car giants General Motors and Ford and Japanese automaker Nissan on Monday restarted car output at their facilities in northwest Russia.
The first 10 days of January were public holidays in Russia, but GM suspended car output at its facility in St. Petersburg on December 28 to prepare to begin assembly of Opel Astra vehicles. The plant also assembles Chevrolet Captiva, Opel Antara and Chevrolet Cruze vehicles.
"Staff got back to work today," plant spokeswoman Yulia Bocharova said.
Nissan's St. Petersburg facility, which opened last June to produce Nissan Teana business-class cars and added an assembly line for X-Trail SUVs in November, also resumed its normal operations on Monday.
"From January 11, the plant is operating with normal five-day working weeks," the spokeswoman said.
The plant is expected to produce 50,000 cars a year once it reaches its designed capacity. Investment in the project has totaled $200 million.
Meanwhile, the Ford plant in Vsevolozhsk in the Leningrad Region, which had previously operated on a reduced scale for nine months due to lower sales, switched to full-time operations on Monday, with two shifts working five-day weeks.
The Ford factory, which produces the Ford Focus and Mondeo models, was opened in Vsevolozhsk in the summer of 2002.
ST. PETERSBURG, January 11 (RIA Novosti)
