MOSCOW, December 29 (RIA Novosti) - Foreign investment in car production in Russia will exceed $1.8 billion this year, the economics ministry said in an end-of-year report on Saturday.

"In 2007, the ministry signed 13 investment agreements under production contracts with foreign companies, leading global carmakers, and Russian producers of cars and auto components, such as Peugeot, Citroen, Suzuki, Hyundai, Severstal-Avto and Toyota," the report reads.

Germany's Volkswagen opened a car assembly plant in the Kaluga Region, located some 180 km (84 miles) southwest of Moscow, in November 2007, and Japan's Toyota launched a plant near St. Petersburg earlier this month.

Japan's Mitsubishi Motors signed a contract on Friday with Russia's economics ministry to invest $200 million in building a car factory in the Kaluga Region.