On March 14, 2025, Almaty Mayor Erbolat Dossaev paid a working visit to the Hyundai Trans Almaty plant, which had been expanded and upgraded. The event was also attended by representatives of the Ministry of Industry and Construction of Kazakhstan and the founder of Astana Motors Nurlan Smagulov.

Hyundai Trans Almaty was renovated to deepen the localization and expand its model range.

Production area has nearly tripled, expanding from 7,000 to 19,400 square meters. The key change in the production process of the plant was the construction and commissioning of the first cataphoretic coating shop in Kazakhstan for the production of commercial vehicles. The cataphoretic coating line has 9 baths, 3 drying chambers and a cabin painting line. The shop covers 1,296 square meters and has a production capacity of 1 body per hour.

Impressed by the upgrades at Hyundai Trans Almaty, Almaty Mayor Erbolat Dossaev emphasized the company's readiness to transition to a more sophisticated technological stage.

“By creating jobs, industrial enterprises of Almaty enhance employee proficiency, develop infrastructure, pay taxes. It drives the social and economic development of the city and provides opportunities to foster engineering personnel,” said Almaty Mayor.

The production processes have also been enhanced with additional welding and painting operations, and a frame assembly line has been installed. This allows the plant to produce trucks and buses with varying wheelbase lengths, and vans of any shape and complexity.

“We invested 12.8 billion tenge in Hyundai Trans Almaty, installed new equipment and created an additional 100 jobs. Hyundai Trans Almaty is a supplier of state-of-the-art specialized vehicles, including passenger buses for the metropolis. In 2024, the plant paid 2 billion tenge in taxes. Thus, the enterprise fulfills all its obligations to the city, and the city supports the development of commercial vehicle production in Almaty. We appreciate this support and will continue to develop in the industry,” said Beknur Nesipbayev, CEO of Astana Motors.

By the end of 2024, the share of CKD production of buses was 21%, and the share of CKD production of trucks was 67%. After the upgrade, the share of CKD production will increase.

Vice Minister of Industry and Construction Olzhas Saparbekov emphasized that deepening the localization is a key area of ​​industrial development in Kazakhstan.

“Today we are accelerating the pace of development of the country’s manufacturing sector and the gradual transition to an industrial Kazakhstan. Astana Motors, in turn, fully performs its obligations to the state, extensively develops the automotive cluster, invests in new and existing enterprises, and creates jobs. We can see that business plays an important role in deepening the localization and developing SMEs,” Olzhas Saparbekov summed up.

In addition, a Sammi K (Republic of Korea) welding line for Hyundai Porter cabins was launched at Hyundai Trans Almaty. The number of welding points on each body is 943. The line includes 11 welding stations, 26 Obara welding guns, welding jigs and other equipment. The production capacity of this welding line is 1 cabin per hour.

The plant has enhanced the production of superstructures. The area of ​​2,252 sq. m houses: a metalworking shop equipped with an automated plasma cutter; a woodworking shop equipped with automated systems and a vacuum table; a sandwich panel production shop with a mechanical gluing line unique for Kazakhstan.

With the commissioning of the superstructure production shop, the plant is capable of producing a wide range of vehicles, including industrial and isothermal vans, truck cranes, truck-mounted cranes, tow trucks, garbage trucks, tank trucks, snow removal machines and aerial platforms. The production capacity of the shop is 700 units per year.

In 2025, the product range will be expanded with the launch of CKD production of two more models – the Hyundai Mighty EX5 truck and the Hyundai Porter.

The Hyundai Porter is a reliable, economical light-duty truck for small and medium businesses. Its price starts from 14 million tenge. The start of sales of domestically produced Hyundai Porter trucks is scheduled for April 2025.

Astana Motors continues to strengthen its position in the automotive industry. On March 7, 2025, Astana Motors and Youngsan (Republic of Korea) announced the launch of the Almaty Autoparts Production car seat plant, in which they jointly invested 4 billion tenge. The plant’s capacity is 100,000 sets of seats per year. The plant has already begun supplying seats to Hyundai Trans Kazakhstan and will eventually produce seats for the Astana Motors Manufacturing Kazakhstan multi-brand automobile plant (a subsidiary of Astana Motors).

The launch of the multi-brand plant is scheduled for the second quarter of 2025. The capacity of Astana Motors Manufacturing Kazakhstan is 90,000 cars of Great Wall Motor Company (GWM), Chery and Changan brands per year.