BERLIN, Apr 7 Siegfried Wolf, the former head of the Austrian company Magna Steyr and the former chairman of the board of directors of the GAZ Group, would like to continue producing cars in Russia with the support of the Russian authorities, reports Spiegel magazine.
The publication indicates that in January this year, the Austrian businessman sent a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin, in which he presented an investment project to «save the Russian auto industry» worth 60 billion rubles. As the magazine reports, according to the project, at least 270,000 cars of the legendary Volga brand are planned to be produced on the domestic Russian market together with GAZ annually, for this it is necessary to involve two enterprises, one of which is the Volkswagen plant in Kaluga.
According to the publication, Wolf is one of the most influential representatives of the European automotive industry, as he is on the supervisory boards of the German auto parts manufacturer Schaeffler, as well as the Porsche SE automaker, which controls the Volkswagen AG automaker. According to the magazine, until the end of 2022, Wolf served as a member of the supervisory board of the GAZ Group and still owns about ten percent of its shares.
At the same time, on Thursday the Kommersant newspaper, citing sources, reported that the production of Chinese Chery cars could begin at the Volkswagen plant in Russia after its sale. The interlocutors of the newspaper said that the deals on the sale of Russian assets of Hyundai and Volkswagen are almost completed and included in the agenda of the next meetings of the government commission on foreign investment.
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