OREANDA-NEWS. Currency jumps and fear of falling demand forced foreign manufacturers to stop the conveyors.

According to the newspaper "Izvestia", on December 17th it was stopped the production of Kaluga plant "PSMA Rus", which produced the models of group PSA Peugeot Citroen and Mitsubishi. The company will resume the work after the New Year. Starting next week, the conveyor can stand at the Kaluga plant Volkswagen. In this case, the plant administration is considering various options for optimization of production capacities, including the reduction of working shifts - from three to two.

Ford plant in Vsevolozhsk already stopped the work partially. "The shop welding gone on Monday, paint shop part too. Assembly shop will still work for two days the next week", - said the head of prof cell, Igor Temchenko.

At Renault, it was informed that the stopping of the conveyor applies only the shops of Moscow plant workshops; assembly at Togliatti (Logan of the second generation and Sandero) is in normal mode. "From December 11th to January 11th, the work of the Moscow plant Renault (currently it produces models Megane, Duster, Nissan Terrano and the first generation of Logan) was suspended in connection with the planned activities, also due to the adjustment of volume of car production," - said an employee of the press service, Catherine Tretyakova.

General Motors plant is also preparing for job cuts. "Idle is waiting for us from the next year in January-February. Say that then they will be pulled out from the house as needed. The Administration notes that hard times came," - said the union leader of the St. Petersburg plant GM, Roman Kosenko. The press service of GM said that there is no problem now at St. Petersburg assembly plant. "The plant operates. About a month ago we went on one shift. At the moment we have no information about a possible shutdown of the plant. We can make flexible production volume, depending on the market situation. We can stop it and it was done more than once this year", - said Director of Public Relations in the Russian GM, Sergey Lepnuhov.

At the plant "Avtotor" it was recognized that the planned stop is connected also with the situation in the market. "We planned for January the prevention work, repair of equipment and it will be mounted control and measuring equipment and new stands. From January 12th until the end of the month it will be undergoing repair, and then we will continue at a normal pace", - reported in the press center of "Avtotor." - Of course, everything affects us - not just a dollar or change of the ruble, but also the decline in sales. It will be made corrections in the production volumes, but it would be also approved with our partners", - explained the representative of the company.

The companies Nissan, Toyota, Sollers (they assemble Mazda, SsangYong and Toyota), Derways (it assembles in Cherkessk Lifan, Geely, Chery, Haima), Hyundai and Kia assured that their production sites continue to produce cars, though volumes by some models are already adjusted.

Experts believe that the suspensions of production are connected with the fact that the manufacturers took a break in anticipation of the coming downturn in demand in January. They need time to predict and adjust the production for 2015. "Raging December agio in the market does not cause among automakers the previous optimism because of the collapse of the ruble. They are waiting for the fixed course to rewrite the price tags and to begin the production in the volume that the market will demand in 2015", - says the analyst of VTB Capital, Vladimir Bespalov.

The association of producers of Russia (APR) is convinced that such stops of plants can be continued throughout 2015. "It will depend on what program will be chosen to reduce costs. One of them will stop plant and send the staff on forced leave, others will reduce staff, others may reduce the number of work shifts", - said the executive director of APR, Igor Korovkin.