Ex-general director of the Nissan plant in St. Petersburg appointed as the curator of the automotive industry in the Ministry of Industry and Trade

Igor Boytsov, in 2017-2021 who served as general director of the Nissan plant in St. Petersburg, was appointed director of the department of the automotive industry and railway engineering of the Ministry of Industry and Trade. This was told to Vedomosti by two sources close to the ministry, and confirmed by a representative of the department. So far, only the acting director of this department, Tigran Parsadanyan, has been listed on the website of the Ministry of Industry and Trade.

Boytsov is a graduate of St. Petersburg Electrotechnical University. He began his career in the automotive industry in 2000 at the Ford site in Vsevolozhsk (closed in 2019), led the project to launch the production of the second generation Ford Focus in the Russian market. In 2006-2012 held various management positions at the plant Toyota in St. Petersburg. Since 2013, he was the director of the Renault plant in Moscow, supervised the launch of the production of the Kaptur crossover at this site.

The position of director of the automotive industry department at the Ministry of Industry and Trade has been vacant since September 2022, when Denis Pak, who had headed it for five years, retired (Vedomosti wrote about this on September 22). At the beginning of 2023, he went to work in the Kaliningrad “Avtotor”, wrote Kommersant. This is confirmed by the sources of Vedomosti.

In December 2022, 44-year-old Maxim Gorin was supposed to replace Pak in the Ministry of Industry and Trade. For several years he served as head of the department for the development of transport communications in the Moscow Department of Transport. Gorin took part in the development of electric transport and charging infrastructure in Moscow, including as part of the Moscow Electric Bus project. He also participated in the creation and development of the Moscow Transport Innovations Foundation.

But this appointment never took place. Gorin went through all the conciliation procedures in the government, but law enforcement agencies did not approve his candidacy, one of Vedomosti’s interlocutors explained. According to another source, Gorin eventually went to work at the Avtodom auto dealer holding, becoming an adviser to the company’s general director Andrei Olkhovsky. Avtodom declined to comment.

A person with extensive production experience in the automotive industry, and especially with experience in launching new models, at the head of a specialized department, is an absolute plus for the industry, says Sergey Udalov, executive director of Avtostat. He will essentially rebuild import substitution in the industry, launch new models on a local component base and create opportunities for the production of auto components in the country, the expert says.

Production and sales of automotive equipment in 2022 against the backdrop of sanctions, the crisis caused by them with the supply of components and the cessation of the production of foreign cars in Russia reached a historical anti-record. So, the production of passenger cars, according to Rosstat. decreased over the past year three times to 450,000 pieces. Sales, according to Avtostat, fell 2.4 times to 626,300 units, more than 70% of the market remained with AvtoVAZ and Chinese brands.