OREANDA-NEWS. Kaliningrad plant "Avtotor" and Turkish company Ford Otosan signed a memorandum of understanding, which provides for the production of trucks brand Ford Trucks in the Kaliningrad region. Already in December, "Avtotor" will start the assembly of Ford commercial vehicles in the test mode, and in February of 2015 it is planned to enter the industrial production.

Model range of Ford Trucks, which will be produced at "Avtotor" includes tractor 1846T, a series of road trucks with wheel formula 4x2 and 6x2, and a series of construction trucks with the wheel formula 6x4 and 8x4. The parties also agreed about the joint investment in the creation of facilities for the production of a full cycle involving welding and painting.

As the chairman of the board of directors "Avtotor Holding", Valery Gorbunov, informed, the production capacity of "Avtotor" now allow to produce at least 15,000 commercial vehicles per year. "In the future, we plan to increase the investment in the project through the establishment of facilities for welding and painting”, - he said.

General Director of Ford Otosan, Haidar Yenigyun, in his turn, said that the company since 2007, has been exporting commercial vehicles in Russia. "We are expanding our production of trucks in Russia, by investing in the improving of the competitiveness in the most important and largest commercial vehicle market in Europe. Through cooperation with "Avtotor" we seek to strengthen our presence in Russia and to provide better and more intimate quality of service and support to our customers. "

The CEO of Ford Otosan said that truck production of Ford in Russia can also expand its presence in the market of other member- countries of the Customs Union - Kazakhstan and Belarus, where it is planned to export the manufactured trucks in the Kaliningrad region.

Organization of production of trucks – is a part of large-scale project of creation of automobile cluster in the Kaliningrad region, which is providing the creation of a full cycle of production capacity of 250 thousand cars per year and enterprises for the production of automotive components. To date, "Avtotor" produces more than 30 models under the brands BMW, KIA, Opel, Cadillac, Chevrolet, Hyundai, and TATA Daewoo.

Ford Otosan – a joint venture between Ford Motor Company and Koc Holding - is the largest exporter of Ford vehicles in Europe. As for the last 12 years the leader of the Turkish automotive industry, Ford Otosan has been producing cars at four plants in Turkey, where about 10 thousand people work. The company has the largest design center in Turkey with 1,300 professionals. Cars and spare parts are exported to 79 countries of the world.