It's Stupino, you stupid ...

This week, the German weekly Spiegel reported that Volkswagen is about to open a factory in Stupino south of Moscow on the Oka river, after the talk about this project had been on and off in the whole of 2005. There it plans to assemble pre-manufactured parts there for the growing Russian market and wants to gain market share of 10% in the next years in Russia. Up to 250000 cars could get of the factory hall in the years to come, in the beginning the models might by Skoda (Octavia) but in the future even other VW brands such as Audi and Seat could utilize the industrial assets.
This may sound akward for factory workers in VW's heartland around Wolfsburg and Salzgitter in Germany. Factories there are hardly running at full tilt and hard labour negotiations and compensation talks have already been held and will continue in the near future. 10000 people are expected to be laid off in the next years (from currently roughly 100000 in western german plants). The bad productiviy of some German VW assembly plants is actually suprising. Harbour Consulting publishes a annual report and claimed that VW needs 50 hours to build a car whereas its competitors only 25.


(You better think about how getting the Golf on top there , MIG model in Stupino, courtesy of Airforce.ru)

Stupino has a tradition of mechanical industries namely among them helicopter rotors (namely for the Mil and Kazan models) and is used by some air force transportation units units as a base (Mi-8). In November 2004 Putin issued a decree on inclusion of developers and manufacturers of Mil helicopters into a merger. The list contains the Moscow Helicopter Plant (Mil design house), Kazan Helicopters, Ulan-Ude aviation plant, Vpered Moscow machinery plant and Stupino machinery-building industrial enterprise.

VW will probably follow this policy of globalising their production network and supplier landscape. It will not be long when Germans might consider to apply for new jobs in Russian factories. We should all learn Russian these days.