REUTERS
Russia's PJSC AvtoVAZ has stopped shipments to Ukraine since last fall, according to CarDiagram, an independent Ukrainian-based car blog, which cites several sources in the domestic car market.
Today, dealerships offer only two models: the Niva SUV and the Largus Universal. As for such low-priced cars as the Lada Granta and the Lada Kalina, they have been unavailable since 2016, CarDiagram said.
The Lada Granta, one of the cheapest cars in Ukraine, disappeared from sale in November 2016. Since then, AvtoVAZ has not supplied this model to Ukrainian distributors.
Read alsoImports of trucks in Ukraine doubleOne of the publication's sources claims that AvtoVAZ has not yet made a final decision whether to ship its cars to Ukraine or not. Representatives of the Russian automaker is still undecided about the price policy in Ukraine.
Recently, the Lada has lost the price battle to Ukraine's Zaporizhia-based car plant, ZAZ, as evidenced by sales statistics for 2016. In addition, the price of some models was similar to that of European cars.
Ukraine introduced a special tariff on Russian cars in 2016. A special import tax rate for AvtoVAZ was set at 14.57%.
Read alsoUkraine sees 71.3% drop in vehicle production in 2015Further, there is no longer a free trade zone between Russia and Ukraine since last year. Therefore, Russian-made cars are subject to 10% tax. This means that starting from 2016 the importer of Lada cars to Ukraine must pay taxes amounting to nearly a quarter of the car cost.
PJSC AvtoVAZ is the largest manufacturer of Renault-Nissan Alliance in Russia and its Togliatti plant is one of the largest car plants worldwide, producing cars in full cycle under four brands (Lada, Renault, Nissan and Datsun).