Nissan Motor Company Begins Construction of New Assembly Plant in St. Petersburg, Russia

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia, July 9/PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. today announced the start of construction of its new US$200 million vehicle assembly plant in St. Petersburg, which is due to open in early 2009.

Carlos Tavares, executive vice president of corporate strategy, product planning & design at Nissan, called the new plant "the next significant step towards global expansion under the Nissan Value-Up plan" during a press conference to mark the occasion.

The ceremony was attended by Russian authorities including First Vice-Prime-Minister Sergey Ivanov and Governor of St. Petersburg Valentina Matvienko.

Once completed and running at full capacity, the plant will produce around 50,000 vehicles a year and employ up to 750 people from the local region. The 167.5 hectare plant, situated 25 kilometers from St Petersburg's city centre, will consist of assembly, paint, trim and chassis lines.

Nissan announced that the two models to be built at the plant will be the Nissan Teana followed by the Nissan X-TRAIL.

Nissan's decision to open a new manufacturing plant in Russia was due to its strong sales growth over recent years in the country, where Nissan has seen an increase from less than 10,000 vehicles in 2003 to more than 75,000 in 2006. Furthermore, this year Russia is expected to overtake the UK as the top volume market for Nissan in Europe for the first time.

To support this growth, Nissan also plans to triple its dealer network compared to 2004 when Nissan began its sales operations in Russia, which will take the number to around 100.

Notes to Editors:

Nissan employs around 12,000 people in its European design, research and development, manufacturing, logistics, and sales and marketing operations. Last year, the company produced a total of 506,602 vehicles in its Spanish and British plants. Nissan Europe's Head Office is based in Trappes (Paris), France. - In Russian version we will change this information to the information about NMR business in Russia.

The Nissan Value-Up plan consists of four breakthrough areas as follows:

1. Infiniti going global as a Tier 1 luxury brand

2. Focus on LCV's: achieve 434,000 units in FY07

3. Sourcing parts from Leading Competitive Countries

4. Significant geographic expansion


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