HispanicBusiness

Carmaker Nissan on Wednesday said it plans to revive its old Datsun brand in Russia, the Japanese company's first bid to produce economy vehicles in the former Soviet republic.

"The first Datsun trucks will be on the roads in Russian cities in March 2014," said Francois Goupil de Bouille, chairman of Nissan Russia, according to an Interfax news agency report.

The group wants to produce up to 100,000 Datsun vehicles annually in Russia by 2016, he said.

"We will start with two models and add one more every six months," de Bouille said.

Production could be under cooperation with Renault and Russian truckmaker AvtoVAZ (Lada), the report said.

The Russia-manufactured Datsuns could also be sold in India and Indonesia as part of a Nissan programme to market inexpensive vehicles in emerging markets, de Boille said.

He declined to comment on Russian media reports that the new Datsun might use components of Russia's Lada.

Nissan is considering use of manufacturing plants in the Ural city Tolyatti and the central Russian city Izhevsk, and a final decision on a production site could be made "in nine months," he said.

Nissan's economy segment Datsun brand was successful in international markets before being abandoned in the mid-1981.

Nissan produces its luxury segment Infiniti brand at a plant in St Petersburg. The vehicle was Russia's number one Japanese car brand in 2011, a company statement said.

Nissan analysts predict some 60 per cent of all cars sold in 2016 worldwide will be bought in emerging markets. Some 30 per cent of Russia's automobile market would, by that time, be inexpensive cars priced at 14,000 dollars and less, they note, according to the Interfax report.