Since last year, new Volkswagen cars have not been produced in Russia and are not officially delivered to the Federal Republic of Germany, but Russian dealers import them from China in rather large consignments through parallel imports. However, this mechanism for circumventing sanctions and restrictions may soon be blocked.
According to the German publication Handelsblatt, Volkswagen China has begun to form “black lists” of local wholesale dealers – those who are suspected of supplying new cars to Russia. If these facts are proven, then Volkswagen China may stop shipping cars to these companies.
The publication notes that Volkswagen, as a global concern, does not have many levers of influence on the market or its players in China, since the company works there through joint ventures with Chinese SAIC and FAW. It is the joint ventures who decide to whom and how to sell cars. But the concern can still influence shipments to specific firms, so Volkswagen China has adopted the tactics of “black lists”. If it is adopted by other foreign automakers (for example, Toyota), then the parallel import of cars from China to the Russian Federation can quickly, if not stop, then seriously decrease.
Meanwhile, as we already wrote, in recent months many “parallel” Volkswagens have appeared in Russia. In particular, a large batch of crossovers was imported into Russia Jetta VS7 and VS5, VA3 budget sedansare also imported Teramont X, TyronTharu, Magotan and a number of other models.
