Ukraine's Zaporizhia Automobile Building Plant started SKD-production of Kia Сee'd and KIA Sportage cars. The experts note that for KIA company this is a way to reduce cost price approximately by 25% and to export cars in EU countries in the future. Ukrainian car manufacturers are interested in placing of orders for cars production. Representatives of KIA Motors and UkrAvto Corporation, to which CJSC ZAZ is included, had negotiations with participation of Prime Minister Julia Timoshenko.
Chairman of the Board of CJSC ZAZ, Mykola Yevdokymenko said: "SKD-production of KIA cars has been already started. We are producing Сee'd and Sportage cars. Then we plan to start full-scale production of KIA Сee'd for the Ukrainian market. An agreement reached with Korean KIA Motors Corporation with regard to SKD-production covers the period from May 2009 through May 2010. Totally 17,000 cars are planned to be produced."
Vice-President of UkrAvto Corporation, Oleg Papashev said: "Earlier Kia Motors and UkrAvto came to an agreement to distribute Kia cars in Ukraine. We think that owing to our network and based on experience we have in sales of similar class cars we can sell more cars than they used to sell before through Kia Distribution Company."
CJSC ZAZ, which is included in UkrAvto Corporation, manufactures passenger cars such as ZAZ, Lanos, Sens, VAZ, Chevrolet, ТАТА trucks, I-Van bus and spare parts thereto.
UkrAvto Corporation is the leader of Ukrainian automobile market; it has the largest dealers' network in Ukraine, as well as dealers' centers in Poland. During many years UkrAvto has been cooperating with Daimler AG, Chrysler LLC, General Motors, Nissan, Toyota, Chery and AvtoVaz.
