Russia’s largest carmaker AvtoVAZ stopped production at its huge Togliatti plant last Thursday, just three days after restarting the assembly line following a month-long extension to its winter break shutdown. The stoppage was blamed on a component supply problem.
"The conveyor was stopped on Thursday for an indeterminate amount of time because of the non-delivery of auto components," AvtoVAZ said in a statement. It would not disclose which components were missing but the assembly line was running again on Monday.
The stoppage has been linked to a new payment scheme introduced by the carmaker, by which it is only paying cash for 30% of supplied components and using promissory notes from its own and affiliated banks to pay for the remaining 70%.
Debts to car parts makers have fallen to 18 billion roubles ($495.9m) from 29 billion over the past month according to the company.
The halt followed reassurances by Boris Alyoshin that production for the month would continue as normal. "We're a little behind schedule this week, but we will resume production on Monday," he told Interfax.
The company is planning to produce 32,000 cars in February, a drop of 31% year on year.
