Twelve Years Later, Cuba Receives 344 Modern Russian Ladas

The Lada, the leading car brand in Russia, has been operating in Cuba for more than forty years. (Youtube)

14ymedio biggerEFE, via 14ymedio, 20 January 2018 — Three-hundred-and-forty-four modern Ladas manufactured by the Russian car company Avtovaz arrived today at the port of Havana, which means a return of the importing of these vehicles to the Island after a twelve year hiatus.

The new vehicles, Vesta and Largus Cross models, manufactured by Russia’s largest automobile company, will be destined for the service with the Cubataxi company, explained the General Director of Transport of Havana, José Conesa, according to the state-owned Cuban Agency News (ACN).

The Lada, the leading brand in the Russian market, has been operating for more than forty years on the island, with thousands of the old 1200 and 1500 models, and the Samara models from the eighties and nineties.

“Cuba is one of our preferred export markets,” Avtovaz president Nicolas Maure said this week, ACN reported.

Maure highlighted the great tradition that Lada has in Cuba and assured that the company is committed to guaranteeing the availability of spare parts and the training of Cuban technicians in the after-sales service.

The sale of these Russian vehicles to Cuba is part of a transportation agreement signed between the governments of both countries in December 2016, which also includes the modernization of the island’s rail system, for which an investment of some one billion euros (about 1.054 billion dollars) is planned.

In recent years Cuba and Russia have given a boost to their bilateral relationship to reactivate the close cooperation they maintained before the demise of the Soviet Union (USSR) in 1991, with the signing of new economic cooperation agreements in several sectors.

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