The city of Moscow, a core shareholder in ZIL automaker, will hold negotiations on cooperation this week with European luxury car manufacturer Porsche AG, a source at the city's administration said on Monday.

"Mayor Yury Luzhkov has signed an order to send a Moscow government delegation to Germany from September 9 to 11, 2010, as part of partnership relations between the city of Moscow and Baden-Wurttemberg to talk the authorities and the Porsche AG company about cooperation," the source told RIA Novosti.

Last week, Vedomosti business newspaper said that ZIL was to join forces with Porsche to design a platform for the assembly of several new vehicles. The paper said that the project agreement, under which Porsche would help design a cabin for a new ZIL truck, was in the process of being prepared.

Porsche is not the only luxury automaker that ZIL has approached - the maker of Ferrari, Italian Pininfarina, has also been in negotiations with the company over designing luxury cars for the country's top administrators.

The head of the Russian presidential administration, Vladimir Kozhin, has said that Russian leaders may go back to riding in locally-made cars.

MOSCOW, Sept 6 (RIA Novosti)