The drop in the ruble exchange rate to dollar and Euro that had been one of the factors caused negative effect on car sales within the country (348 491 new cars have been sold in January-August 2015 compared to 479 144 cars sold in the same period in 2014, with dynamics -27.3%) created a difficult situation on the export market, affecting in two different directions.
On the one hand, there was an increase in the value of Russian car industry products, exported to non-CIS states. The share of machinery and equipment exports in January-July 2015 increased by 2% (up to 5%) compared to January-July 2014. The volume of passenger car supply to non-CIS states significantly increased by 20.2%.
On the other hand, export to CIS countries underwent a significant decline: the volume of exported engineering products decreased by 32.5% in January-July of 2015 compared to the same period in 2014.
Despite fluctuations, by the end of 2Q 2015 Russian car exports have changed the trend to positive one and reached 309 million USD.
Significant exports increase in comparison with January 2015 was caused by increased number of deliveries to Belarus and Kazakhstan, where due to the depreciation of Russian ruble products of Russian car industry became a bargain. However, by the middle of 2Q 2015 Kazakhstan stopped importing car volumes comparable to April 2015 (80 914 thousand USD) due to the depreciation of its own currency.
At the same time Kazakhstan and Belarus remain the most promising markets for Russian car exports, because they are included in Customs Union, where Russian vehicles are duty-free.
According to statistics of the Eurasian Economic Commission, amount of exported cars in 2014 is 205.5 thousand units that are about 12% of produced cars in Russia (1740 thousand units were produced by the end of 2014).
The most active exporters by results of 2Q 2015 were the following Russian regions: Moscow (exports 159.3 million USD), Moscow region (31.4 million USD), Samara region (27.8 million USD), St. Petersburg (22.7 million USD) and Tyumen region (10.4 million USD).
According to the results of the conference “Autoevolution-2015”, held in Kaluga, Russian car exports structure became aware in terms of brands: Lada – 48%, Hyundai Solaris – 24%, Ford 11%, UAZ -5%, Volkswagen Polo sedan – 4%, Chevrolet Niva – 3%, business sedan Toyota Camry – 3%, others – 2%.
Sources of information: Federal customs service, Association of European Businesses, Fira- Rosstat, Federal state statistics service, Eurasian Economic Commission, Conference “Autoevolution 2015” www.autoevolution-russia.com.
