Japan’s Mitsubishi Fuso to resume truck assembly in Russia in September

TOKYO, July 30. /TASS/. Japan-based manufacturer Mitsubishi Fuso Truck and Bus Corp will resume assembly of trucks in Russia in September, the company’s press service told TASS on Thursday. The press service cited Michael Kamper, head of Marketing, Sales & Customer Services Trucks Asia, as saying that the company stays at the Russian market, expecting its share of sales to increase in 2015 to five percent in a segment of trucks pay load between 3.5 and 16 tonnes. Along with this, the German-owned company, one of the world's largest truck manufacturers, told TASS that it would resume manufacturing of trucks in the city of Naberezhnye Chelny in September. In April, Mitsubishi Fuso Truck and Bus Corp said it was suspending assembly of trucks in Russia over the declining demand and the rouble devaluation. "The prospects of resuming production are not yet determined," a representative of the company said. "However, we are not going to leave Russia and there will be no job cuts. We will be monitoring development of the situation." Mitsubishi Fuso has been manufacturing Canter trucks in Naberezhnye Chelny, the second largest city in Russia's Republic of Tatarstan, since 2009 on the basis of a joint venture of its major shareholder, Daimler AG and Russia's KAMAZ. In 2011-2013, some 1,700 trucks were produced annually, and the figure fell by almost one half in 2014. Later on, the company winded up supplies of component parts and by March the assembly of trucks had been terminated. Around 6,800 Canters assembled in Naberezhnye Chelny have been sold in the Russian market, the company says. Read more