Toyota and Nissan are considering jointly building a logistics center in the Nizhny Novgorod region, Andrey Ivanov, President of the Povolzhie Logistics Association, announced during a press conference yesterday (8th June).

The news comes amid growing interest from Chinese industrial manufacturers in building warehouses in the region. Chinese firms want to store their products in Europe as part of a drive to further promote them in the continent's markets.

Mr Ivanov is keen to point out that a developed logistics infrastructure can be key to making a region attractive to potential investors. “Regions which treat logistics as a separate procedure from the general transportation process and pay special attention to it achieve better economic results than regions where logistics is underdeveloped”, he said Mr Ivanov.

Presently there are around 150,000 square meters of warehouses in Nizhny Novgorod. “An ideal ratio would be to have over 100,000 square meters of warehouse space for every 500,000 people, meaning there should be roughly 300,000 square meters in Nizhny Novgorod. But I should reiterate that the process of building modern warehouses is still ongoing and will take some time”, he concluded.