At the car dealership, Vladimir Putin spoke with Novosibirsk residents who had decided to sell their old vehicles to be recycled, and then use the money to buy new ones. Customers said that they had had no difficulty registering their new cars in place of their old ones at the dealership. Some of the customers were pensioners. The prime minister accompanied one of them on ride in a new Niva the pensioner had traded in for his previous 1966 GAZ.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin speaks with journalists after visiting car dealership
Vladimir Putin: The programme's purpose was, first, to help the automotive industry restore production. And second, to help people get rid of their old cars and buy new ones.
All in all, the programme is working. About 10,500 cars have been sold under the programme since the beginning of the year.
Remark: Almost 13,000 cars.
Vladimir Putin: Almost 13,000 cars, as my colleague has reminded me. Moreover, 40,500 certificates have been issued. The AvtoVAZ car factory even had to set up a new production line in April. The plant's sales increased by 13%, as well as its production. AvtoVAZ is now having trouble meeting demand, and thus had to commission a new production line. It manufactures classic models, that is what customers and the market want.
We can ascertain that the programme is working and meeting its objective. But it is not working exactly as we would have liked. That is why the second part of the programme will focus on meeting customers' demand for new cars. The process should be organised properly as it is done here in Novosibirsk: where real people and not dummy people brought in their old cars, traded them in and bought new cars that had already been registered which the traffic police.
Unfortunately, people face problems in other cities, such as long and difficult procedures to strike the old car off the register and long queues at car dealerships, including unnecessary queues. The programme has been launched and people are eager to take advantage of it, but some car dealerships are creating unnecessary queues.
However, I believe that these problems can be resolved. The appropriate ministry is closely following the situation. We will fix these imperfections. But I would like to stress once again that we have already achieved certain results, and the result that we wanted to achieve is already on the horizon.
Question: Will this programme be extended?
Vladimir Putin: We have not yet considered that issue. I mean that we first need to finish what we have started, and then adjust the details. The programme has both advantages and disadvantages. As you know, we launched the programme after several other countries had implemented it. We were in contact with our foreign counterparts who had done so. And they emphasised that demand for cars falls sharply as the government scales back the programme. However, we have just launched it, and it is too early to speak of extending it.