GM plant in St Pete to prepare for Opel Astra production.

ST PETERSBURG, December 28 (Itar-Tass) - The General Motors car
factory, located in the Shushary industrial zone (St Petersburg) suspends
production until the end of the year, after which the factory personnel
will go on New-Year holidays.

Yulia Boicharova, public relations manager at the GM Auto Company, has
told Itar-Tass that the factory will have "non-production days" from
Monday to December 31. In the period from January 1 to 10 the factory
personnel will have New-Year holidays.
The Boicharova said that the non-production days were introduced at
the factory in view of preparations to put new car models into production
(the production platform is being prepared for the manufacture of Opel
Astra cars).
At the same time part of the factory personnel engage in start-up and
adjustment operations while others undergo training to operate new
equipment. The assembly line is to resume operation in a usual production
mode on January 11.
The GM factory began to operate on November 7, 2008. Investments in
the creation of the first phase of the enterprise with a capacity of
60,000 cars a year amounted to more than $300 million. The factory is to
attain its rated capacity towards the end of 2010.
The factory has currently established the manufacture of three car
models. However, the production of two of them, Opel Antara and Chevrolet
Captiva, has been suspended since September of this year.
"For the time being, we have switched the factory capacities over to
the manufacture of a new car model, Chevrolet Cruz. However, we are ready
to resume the production of the two above mentioned car models soon," the
GM spokeswoman emphasized. In 2010, the factory's production line will
include yet another car model -- Opel Astra.

.CB First Dpty Chairman predicts inflation decline in RF.

MOSCOW, December 28 (Itar-Tass) - Alexei Ulyukayev, First Deputy
Chairman of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, believes that "The
tendency towards a decline in inflation (in Russia) will be keeping on
within a foreseeable interval of next year" and that the draft official
6.5-7.5 percent inflation forecast, prepared by the Ministry of Economic
Development, "is an adequate one reflecting fundamental circumstances".
In an interview published in Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper on Monday,
Ulyukayev warned, however, about the so-called January climb in inflation
rate, which is coming about under the influence of many a factor.
The banker reckons "both December's budget expenditure and the
population's additional incomes, the New-Year-Eve and post-New-Year
spending" among such factors. Ulyukayev said in 2010 "This anomaly will be
keeping on. However, it will be much smoother and have a lesser effect on
further activities".
Ulyukayev does not visualize "fundamental circumstances, at least
those concerning inflation, that would sharply change the forecast".
However, "this does not mean that we shall sit back and gladly record the
declining inflation rate" -- "in the second half of next year, it may so
happen, we shall see an even more tense inflation-related situation than
now".
The First Deputy Chairman of the CBRF warns that the situation has not
stabilized in full, although we have gone through the downturn period as
an acute phase of uncertainty". "We now have a long phase of a very
difficult getting-out -- two to three years", and "one should not expect
that we shall have a quick breaking away and that benefits will start
flowing like water".
Ulyukayev stated with a "high percentage of confidence" that there
would be no sharp depreciation of the rouble. He also said "we do not
pursue such a goal of supporting some definite rate of the rouble." "It
will be established in accordance with fundamental market-determined
circumstances". "But we shall smooth fluctuations over, seeking to prevent
upheavals. The main thing for us is to avoid sharp ups and downs. I do not
visualize any circumstances that would prevent us from accomplishing
that," Ulyukayev emphasized.
The banker warned against "reacting to any sneeze of the currency
market". "One would never have enough means for that," and that "one would
remain a loser all the same," he said. Ulyukayev is convinced that "The
only safe strategy is not to react nervously."
Ulyukayev pointed out that "the events in Europe and in the United
States are one of the factors of anxiety" and that "risks do exist but
they are quite moderate so far". "We closely follow them and do not see
any grounds for some actions, specifically those for changing the pattern
of our reserves, etc." He said that slightly over one-third of Russia's
reserves had been invested in American securities.
Ulyukayev expressed deep conviction that in 2010 Russia will be able
to return to the pre-recession level of credit rates." He said "the banks
simply lack any other way to earn in the current inflation-rate situation".
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