PPG Industries Inc., said Thursday it plans to build an automotive coatings and industrial coatings plant near Moscow, its first manufacturing plant in Russia.
Pittsburgh-based PPG said it signed an investment agreement with the administration of Russia's Kaluga region, where the plant will be built about 45 miles southwest of Moscow. PPG did not release the amount of the investment.
The plant will employ about 70 people and manufacture coatings for automotive and other industrial customers. It will be fully owned by PPG, said Bill Wulfsohn, PPG senior vice president, coatings.
"The Russian economy is booming and automotive production is growing quickly. To best serve the market, we must have local manufacturing capabilities," Wulfsohn said.
Seven new automotive assembly plants are in the planning or construction phase in Russia and are expected to come online within the next three years.
The Kaluga area of Russia has attracted foreign investment from leading international companies such as Volkswagen, Volvo Truck, Samsung, farm equipment maker John Deere, L'Oreal and Nestle, PPG said.
PPG is not releasing information on when the plant will start production or whether PPG employees from the Pittsburgh area will be transferred temporarily to Russia to help with the construction and start-up of the plant, spokeswoman Betsy Mallison Bialosky said.
PPG, the world's second-largest automotive coatings maker, will be competing against several other foreign companies seeking a piece of Russia's growing automotive market.
Among those are Germany's BASF Coatings, which last week said it started production at a coatings plant near Moscow. That plant, which can produce 6,000 tons of paint a year, will supply customers in Russia's automotive market, BASF said.
Russia is considered one of the world's four largest growth markets and its expansion is expected to make it Europe's second strongest national economy, after Germany, BASF said.
