St. Petersburg Car Plants Aim to Reach Pre-COVID Production by 2028

ST. PETERSBURG, June 7. /TASS/. Car plants in St. Petersburg may return to pre-COVID production volumes by 2028, Alexander Sitov, the Chairman of the St. Petersburg Committee on Industrial Policy, Innovations, and Trade, said in an interview with TASS at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF). "We hope by 2028 to actually reach the capacities that St. Petersburg had before, in other words, more than a third of the cars produced in Russia. We are talking about several hundred thousand cars per year, but this is a medium-term forecast. In the next 2-3 years, we expect to reach this benchmark," Sitov said. The car plants became more modern and their capabilities increased after the upgrade, the official said. "Therefore, we expect even a peak increase in car production in our city. If we talk about what was before the coronavirus infection, which was the first to start affecting car production, and then difficulties arose due to illegal sanctions imposed on our country, now the capabilities of the plants have increased," he noted.