Baku, Azerbaijan, May 19
By Fatih Karimov - Trend: Iranian carmaker Saipa has launched an assembly line to produce two Chinese-made Brilliance brand cars, namely H200 and H300, Saeed Madani, the managing director of Saipa, stated.
He added that in the first step, 30 percent of parts and components of the cars will be manufactured by domestic producers, and the amount will be increased in the future, Iran 's IRNA news agency reported May 19.
Saipa is projected to produce 20,000-30,000 of the cars in the current Iranian fiscal year, he noted.
The manual transmission model of the cars will be sold at around $14,000 and the automatic transmission model will be sold at around $16,000 in the domestic market, he said.
The USD official exchange rate in Iran is about 28,000 rials.
Madani said in December 2014 that cooperation with Chinese partners would not continue in the long run.
"We will cooperate with Chinese companies in the short-term just to deal with the problem of joint venture and platform," he added.
Saipa is mostly in cooperation with Nissan and Renault, he said, adding that Saipa has been negotiating with Volvo in order to launch joint ventures.
For the time being, less than 5 percent of Saipa cars are manufactured in cooperation with Chinese companies, he noted.
Iran's auto industry has been a major casualty of penalties imposed over the Islamic republic's nuclear program, with production plummeting and workers laid off because of the ensuing economic slowdown.
Edited by CN