Mitsubishi signs pact with Moscow

Mitsubishi Motors Corp, Japan's fastest-growing car exporter, signed an agreement with the Russian government granting it incentives to assemble vehicles in the country, where economic growth is boosting auto demand.

"`It's a first step for building a plant," Tomoko Kawabe, a company spokeswoman, said by phone. "We will announce the plan as soon as it's been finalized."

The agreement includes an incentives package, including reduced customs duties on imported auto parts, the carmaker said in a statement yesterday.

Mitsubishi Motors, whose sales in Russia surged 48 percent in the first 11 months of the year, would follow Toyota Motor Corp and Nissan Motor Co in announcing plans to make vehicles in the country.

"Mitsubishi has carved out a niche as the third-largest Japanese carmaker in the fast-growing Russia market," said Hirofumi Yokoi, a Tokyo-based analyst at CSM Worldwide, an auto consulting company.

"By setting up local factories, Japanese carmakers are making a bigger commitment to supplying the Russian market," he said.

Toyota its first factory in Russia, near St. Petersburg, this month and Nissan will open another in 2009.

Mitsubishi Motors' Lancer sedan was the 11th most popular car in the country by sales from January to last month.

The company may increase vehicle sales in the country 40 percent next year to 140,000 units, according to Rolf Group, the carmakers' Russian distributor.

Foreign carmakers have tripled their share of the Russian market in the last five years to 78 percent.