GM in $1 billion venture with Russia's GAZ

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian car maker GAZ plans to create a $1 billion joint venture with General Motors (GM.N: Quote, Profile, Research), the director of GAZ's GAZA.RTS light vehicles unit Leonid Dolgov said on Friday.

The venture will produce around 300,000 cars per year, allowing the partners to compete with French rival Renault (RENA.PA: Quote, Profile, Research) in Russia, Europe's largest car market.

(Reporting by Anton Doroshev, writing by Simon Shuster, editing by Gleb Bryanski)