MOSCOW, January 28 (RIA Novosti) - French car giant Peugeot-Citroen will sign an agreement on Tuesday to set up an auto plant near Kaluga, about 200km southwest of Moscow, Russia's economics minister said on Monday.
"There are plans to build a plant to produce Peugeot 307 and Citroen C4 mid-range cars," Elvira Nabiullina said adding that investment in the facility, designed at producing 75,000 cars annually, would total 300 million euros ($440 million).
She said that the construction of the plant "is planned to be completed by 2010," and will employ around 2,600 workers in the region.
The Kaluga Region is likely to become the leading Russian region in terms of plants specializing in foreign car production, as two other leading cars makers also plan to open factories there.
In December Japan's Mitsubishi Motors signed a contract with Russia's economics ministry to invest $200 million in building a plant in the Kaluga Region for the initial annual production of 50,000 cars.
The region has also been chosen as a site by Volvo Trucks. The Swedish producer will invest 3.5 billion rubles (about $135 million) in the region and create about 1,000 jobs.
Earlier a high-ranking official with the ministry said the investors intend to locate their plants next to each other, north of Kaluga, to streamline expenditure.
