MINSK, 22 September (BelTA) – It is possible that the Belarusian car assembly company Unison may take over the management of the Saint Petersburg-based factory of General Motors, BelTA learned from Belarusian First Deputy Industry Minister Gennady Svidersky on 22 September.
The official said: “It is possible. Technical negotiations are in progress for now. There are no real plans for Unison to run the factory in Saint Petersburg. When these talks reach the level sufficient for adopting a road map, we will let you know.”
Some shares in the main capital of Unison Company are owned by the state. It is up to the supervisory board to decide on mergers and acquisitions. “There are no applications to consider for now,” noted the Belarusian First Deputy Industry Minister.
Gennady Svidersky noted that Unison is doing well and operates at full capacity, assembling cars of various brands. The bulk of the output is sold on the Russian market. A modern full-cycle welding and painting division will be built next year. Construction operations will be finished this year while the welding and painting assets will be deployed in H1 2016.
Located in the village of Obchak, 10km away from Minsk, the car assembly enterprise Unison was established in 1996 as a Belarusian-British joint venture Ford Union. In 2000 it was reincorporated into the private joint-stock company (ZAO) Unison. For over 15 years the company has been assembling a number of automobile brands, including Ford, KIA, and Samand.
