Putin Attends Opening of Toyota’s New St. Petersburg Plant

Russian President Vladimir Putin attended the launch ceremony of a new Toyota plant, which opened on Friday near his home town of St. Petersburg in northwest Russia.

Putin was given a tour of the factory and watched as the first vehicle rolled off the assembly line at the plant, which plans to produce 20,000 Toyota Camry cars a year and will employ around 600 workers. Investment in the project was over 5 billion rubles ($202 million).

He congratulated the Japanese partners on the plant and the first-ever Toyota car to be produced in Russia, saying the opening was an example of successful cooperation between the government, regional authorities and company management.

“I want to congratulate all of you on this event… Two years ago we…laid a stone for the foundation of the future plant. Frankly speaking, it was hard to believe that the plant would be up and running in two years,” Putin said.

Putin also said closer bilateral ties would help resolve issues between the two countries.

“Expanding trade and economic ties will of course create conditions for the strengthening of Russian-Japanese cooperation in general and will create the necessary base to solve other problems,” he said.

Putin said trade turnover between the countries this year grew over 40% to $18.5 billion on last year’s figures.

The Russian president said about 1,000,000 cars annually would roll off production lines with foreign involvement in Russia over the next three-four years.

Source RIA Novosti

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