Photo: mazda
Russia is currently succumbing to the economic sanctions that the Western world is enforcing and things don’t seem to be coming back around for them. With oil prices under the $50/barrel psychological limit, the country’s bound to take huge dive pretty soon.
The Russian ruble already took a pretty big hit that the government managed to handle pretty decent, despite pressure coming from all sides. However, since the world’s largest country in sheer size is relying heavily on petrol and gas revenues, the economic downfall is pretty sure to happen.
According to various experts, Russia’s economy will shrink between 3.4 and 6 percent this year alone and those are vast numbers for one of the world’s biggest economies. It’s good news if you want to purchase something in rubles, though, and Mazda seems to be unfazed by the risks doing business with Russians involve. By the way, this is all happening while most European or American manufacturers are slowly pulling out of the same country.
The Japanese manufacturer just signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Sollers to begin assessing a new engine plant in the country. That means that they are actually looking to buy land, and everything else needed to build a factory for their mills.
Sollers is also the partner of Ford and Hyundai-Kia and has been working with these companies for quite a long time. As a matter of fact, Ford just invested $275 million in Tatarstan, Russia to open up a plant that will be building up to 105,000 EcoBoost engines per year. Those will be going into the European versions of the Fiesta and Focus models.
In the case of Mazda, those numbers will be different, though. The Japanese are currently building 80,000 units a year thanks to Sollers as it already has a separate agreement with the Russians to manufacture cars under license. This had been in effect since 2012, so it was before the madness began with all the sanctions and wars in the region.
However, they will need to be careful still as the ruble has taken a pretty serious hit recently. For example, in the last 12 months, it lost around 50 percent in value against the dollar and things aren’t looking better for the near future either.
According to various experts, Russia’s economy will shrink between 3.4 and 6 percent this year alone and those are vast numbers for one of the world’s biggest economies. It’s good news if you want to purchase something in rubles, though, and Mazda seems to be unfazed by the risks doing business with Russians involve. By the way, this is all happening while most European or American manufacturers are slowly pulling out of the same country.
The Japanese manufacturer just signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Sollers to begin assessing a new engine plant in the country. That means that they are actually looking to buy land, and everything else needed to build a factory for their mills.
Sollers is also the partner of Ford and Hyundai-Kia and has been working with these companies for quite a long time. As a matter of fact, Ford just invested $275 million in Tatarstan, Russia to open up a plant that will be building up to 105,000 EcoBoost engines per year. Those will be going into the European versions of the Fiesta and Focus models.
In the case of Mazda, those numbers will be different, though. The Japanese are currently building 80,000 units a year thanks to Sollers as it already has a separate agreement with the Russians to manufacture cars under license. This had been in effect since 2012, so it was before the madness began with all the sanctions and wars in the region.
However, they will need to be careful still as the ruble has taken a pretty serious hit recently. For example, in the last 12 months, it lost around 50 percent in value against the dollar and things aren’t looking better for the near future either.
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