Ganja Automobile Plant to cooperate with Finnish Sampo
By Leman Mammadova
Azerbaijan is taking further steps for developing its own vehicle manufacturing market to increase the local production and decrease import dependence.
Having established strong cooperation with Belarus, Iran and Russia in automotive sphere, the country is also going to cooperate with Finland in this area.
Ganja Automobile Plant and the Finnish company Sampo have agreed on cooperation in the field of maintenance of combines and manufacturing of spare parts.
Two companies signed a memorandum of cooperation. Sampo made the proposal for joint activities.
Sami Seppala, director of regional sales and marketing at Sampo, and Elshan Mammadov, deputy director of Ganja Automobile Plant, signed the memorandum.
Ganja Automobile Plant and Sampo will cooperate in the technical maintenance of combines, production and supply of spare parts, etc.
Sampo-Rosenlew is a well-known manufacturer of combine harvesters and forest equipment. So far, the company has supplied over 50,000 combine harvesters to approximately 50 countries. Its main sales markets are Scandinavian, European, North African and CIS countries.
Azerbaijan’s Ganja Automobile Plant operates since December 2004. Presently, the Plant specializes on assembling Russian Oka and UAZ cars, Belarusian MAZ and Belarus tractors, Chinese Changan vans and trucks and other vehicles.
The plant produced 478 units of machinery in January-April 2019, including 466 different models of tractors, one MAZ automobile trailer, one KAMAZ automobile, two MAZ buses and five tractor trailers with a self-operating mechanism.
In general, Ganja Automobile Plant produced 8 models of MAZ cars in the amount of 2,864 units. Some 30-40 percent of the assembly of these vehicles was provided by local production. Moreover, the plant manufactured 330 MAZ trailers and 3,202 units of attachments, 208 KAMAZ trucks and 411 Ural vehicles.
Ganja Automobile Plant is the largest assembly plant of Belarusian tractors outside the Eurasian Economic Union. So far, more than 10,000 Belarusian tractors and specialized equipment have been assembled at the Ganja Automobile Plant.
This year the plant launched a new assembly line for E-321 electric buses jointly with Belarusian Belkommunmash. This electric bus is beneficial, both in terms of minimizing the negative impact on the environment and in terms of energy consumption savings. The new electric buses, designed to carry 83 passengers, are equipped with 26 seats, air conditioning, information monitor and video surveillance system.
Ganja Automobile Plant’s capacity allows production of 150 electric buses and 120 combines annually.
Recently, the plant signed a contract with Russia’s Kamaz for the supply of vehicle assembly sets.