American sanctions against AvtoVAZ could have caused the cessation of assembly of the Lada X-Cross 5 in St. Petersburg, now history is repeating itself
The United States introduced new sanctions against Russia: FSUE NAMI, subordinate to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, was included in the extensive list of companies subject to restrictions. It is NAMI that now holds shares in the St. Petersburg Automobile Plant, which launched the assembly of the XCITE X-Cross 7 crossovers (aka Chery Tiggo 7 Pro). But sanctions can greatly interfere with the work of the plant or even stop the enterprise’s activities.
This already happened last year, when the United States imposed sanctions against AvtoVAZ, which at that time owned a plant in St. Petersburg. Then the company was supposed to assemble Lada X-Cross 5 crossovers (FAW Bestune T77), but nothing came of it. AvtoVAZ even had to distance itself from the activities of the enterprise; the site was renamed from «Lada St. Petersburg» in «Avtozavod St. Petersburg», a few months later AvtoVAZ confirmed the transfer of shares of the company to NAMI.
«In this regard, the future fate of the «Avtozavod St. Petersburg» (formerly Nissan), whose shares were reported to have been transferred by US. It looks like the shares will have to be transferred to some other state pocket, which is not yet under sanctions, so that «Avtozavod St. Petersburg» could freely work with external partners», — Maxim Kadakov, editor-in-chief of «Behind the wheel» commented on the situation.
US — is not the only enterprise in the Russian automobile industry against which new sanctions have been imposed. Aurus, LLC «Lada Auto Holding» (parent company of AvtoVAZ) and JSC «SEZ PPT Alabuga» (management company of the Special Economic Zone in Yelabuga).