Since former GM executive Bo Andersson took over as GAZ President three years ago the Russian truck, van, bus and car giant has enjoyed an incredible recovery. Dealers are delighted and production is soaring. In an exclusive interview for MIM, Andersson speaks to Vaughan Freeman about the company's phenomenal success Something of a revolution has taken GAZ from a $1.3 billion loss in 2008 to a $260 million profit last year. In the past three years the world's second biggest production facility, the gigantic Nizhny Novgorod plant, all million square feet of it, has seen the workforce fall from over 50,000 to 22,000. Today GAZ produces two and half times as many vehicles as in 2009 and the firm is now producing vehicles in partnership with marques such as Skoda, Daimler-Benz and Chevrolet. At Nizhny Novgorod - one of 13 GAZ plants -hundreds of buildings have been renovated (100 have been closed), but more importantly hundreds of millions of euros have been spent installing the very latest European-specification production line equipment. Staff have been intensively trained and retrained and demanding brands such as Daimler and VW are happy to have GAZ making their vehicles for them in Russia. GAZ is also relaunching its own-brand vans, not just to continue to grow its customer base in Russia, but also to win customers abroad. The ambition does not end there. As we spoke, Andersson was finalising plans to visit China in an effort to make GAZ the biggest distributor of Chinese vehicles in Russia.
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