ST.PETERSBURG - Two new large automobile projects would be launched in the course of the 10th Petersburg Economic Forum, which releases here on Tuesday. The foundation would be laid on Tuesday for a General Motors plant, which is to be put up near the city, and an accord on the construction there also of a Nissan automobile assembly factory would be signed simultaneously with this.

St.Petersburg has chosen a 94-hectares plot to the General Motors Company in the Shushary industrial zone, next to the site where the Japanese Toyota Company had started to build its plant in June 2005. At the first stage, the General Motors plant is preparation to manufacture three modifications of its automobiles. Its annual output would initially equal to 25,000 automobiles. The company is predictable to spend in the project more than 115 million U.S. dollars at the initial stage and to finally double this figure.

The implementation of this project would provide the city with seven hundred additional workplaces. The St.Petersburg city government has given the status of strategic investor on the General Motors Company. It would be granted a standard set of tax privileges and preferences, which is typically guaranteed to all the major investors. The agreements on this project oblige the city to carry out the engineering preparation of the site for the building of the automobile plant.

As to the Nissan Company, a preliminary agreement on the structure of its plant was achieved last spring. The terms of the project were not in print up to now. They would be most likely announced on Tuesday during the signing of the final contract.

There is also a Ford Automobile Plant not far from St.Petersburg.