Nicom Auto reports it has bought 25% plus 1 share of AMUR car factory. According to Vedomosti newspaper, this announcement was made by the company’s GD Vladimir Franke in the course of Interauto Exhibition on August 30, 2007. The transaction is supposed to be completed this fall; Mr. Pavel Chernavin has already confirmed these terms. The price of the transaction has been kept confidential, yet some analysts claim it’s going to come to something like $5m, since AMUR car factory does not have any welding fabrication or paint spray processing facilities.

AMUR car factory (whose controlling shareholding belongs to SKProm) produced its first Geely Otaka cars in Novouralsk on June 5, 2007. The basic model comes at a price of about 300,000 RUR. The producers believed that once they were allowed to do industrial assembling on their own and were offered 5% to 20% discounts on customs duties in terms of car parts, their cars would be able to compete with the Chinese Chery Amulets that are currently produced in Kaliningrad. A basic Geely Otaka, though, is about 50,000 RUR more expensive than a basic Chery Amulet. The problem is that the factory was never allowed to perform industrial assembling, which means the original car parts are to be imported to Russia from China through dealer networks only.