After a three-year break from the Kazakh market, Czech Skoda (belonging to the Volkswagen concern) is immediately returning to the republic with industrial assembly: an agreement has been signed with the Allur automobile group. Along with the Karoq, Kodiaq and Kamiq crossovers, the Octavia passenger model will also be produced at the Allur plant in Kostanay (formerly SaryArkaAvtoprom).
“Starting next year, cars produced at factories in Mlada Boleslav and Kvasiny will be assembled for the Kazakhstan market
“It is distributed at the Allur factory in Kostanay and among local dealers.” registered In the statement made by Skoda.
Within the scope of the cooperation, it is planned to open 15 dealership centers in major cities of Kazakhstan and occupy 5% of the local market between 2024-2028. This figure is expected to exceed 200 thousand cars annually in the next five years.
Skoda crossovers, liftbacks and station wagons are well known to Russian consumers – they were produced in our country until 2022 at the factory in Nizhny Novgorod. About the earlier departure of the Volkswagen concern from this site Wrote “socialbites.ca”.
Skoda operated in Kazakhstan between 2005 and 2021 and had to leave the domestic market due to the bankruptcy of its former partner BİPEK Auto dealer holding. It was the distributor of Skoda and produced cars of the Czech brand at the facility. “Asian Cars” In Ust-Kamenogorsk.
Considering the Russian Federation
The production capacity of the factory in Kostanay is 125 thousand cars per year. Now the sale of Skoda cars is carried out on the territory of Kazakhstan and only to citizens of Kazakhstan upon presentation of a taxpayer identification number, under an agreement with the Czech company; Accordingly, deliveries to other countries are not yet included in the plans. pointed out Artur Miskaryan, director of the Kazakhstan Automotive Market Monitoring and Analysis Agency.
“In the current situation, I believe that the brand has a chance to occupy about 5% of the new car market. For comparison, in 2020 Skoda’s share was about 1% of the market,” the expert noted in an interview with socialbites.ca.
Independent automotive industry consultant Sergei Burgazliev has a different opinion; He believes that the production of Skoda cars in Kazakhstan and subsequent delivery to Russia through parallel imports is the working plan of the new Skoda project. Otherwise, there is no point or chance in returning the brand only to the Kazakhstan market without the option of exporting to the Russian Federation. The interlocutor points out that it makes sense to make large investments in production in another country if the volume of automobile production is at least 30 thousand per year.
Skoda cars produced in this country will be considered goods produced in the Customs Union territory of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) countries and therefore can be supplied without paying customs duty. According to a similar scheme, Geely cars produced at the Belgi plant in Belarus are brought to Russia.
“If Skoda has a contract for the production of cars with Allur and ownership of the supplied parts passes to Allur, then this product will be considered to be produced in the EAEU,” Burgazliev explains to socialbites.ca.
If Skoda cars are included in the list of goods that can be imported by parallel import in accordance with Order No. 1532 of the Ministry of Industry and Trade and are put into civil circulation in a third country (in this case, Kazakhstan), then they officially fall within the scope of customs benefits.
“For now, it looks like Volkswagen has finally found a way to produce goods on EAEU territory and export them to Russia, bypassing EU sanctions. “They say imports from EU territory are prohibited,” he said.
– explains Burgazliev.
A legal question remains: Can the EU bring a lawsuit against Volkswagen as the owner of the trademark? The expert reminds that there are also sanction risks from the USA and that the North American market is the second most important market for Volkswagen after China.
Igor Morzharetto, partner of the analytical agency Avtostat, believes that the supply of Skoda assembled in Kazakhstan to the Russian market will be of a secret nature.
“There are strict bans in Europe and especially in Czech, but parallel imports and secret supply are possible,” Morzharetto said in an interview with socialbites.ca.
Producing cars in Kazakhstan makes it possible to sell them to neighboring countries because the Kazakhstan market is stable but small. In this sense, Central Asian countries where economic growth takes place are more interesting in terms of exports. The expert added that, first of all, this is Uzbekistan, which has a shortage of cars.