This has been a busy week for production starts at two key Mercedes-Benz plants. Following the GLE Job One ceremony at Tuscaloosa, the Beijing Benz joint venture (BBAC) marked the start of its second plant with a line-off event for the GLA, its first compact car.

The new factory, built from scratch in a record time of less than three years, will boost BBAC’s overall production capacity to about 250,000 passenger cars by the end of 2015.

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Daimler’s China chief Hubertus Troska said: “The investment of EUR720m demonstrates our confidence in Mercedes-Benz’ prosperous future in China.”

The new plant is now BBAC Mercedes-Benz’s most comprehensive passenger car plant worldwide – it is the only one building front and rear drive passenger cars plus engines under one roof.

“To have the right products and local production footprint is certainly essential for our sustainable growth in China. Today we bring both together, pushing our strategic partnership with BAIC and China to the next level,” Troska added.

The 1.5m sq m Beijing compact car site complements the current Mercedes-Benz’ compact model plants in Rastatt (Germany) and Kecskemet (Hungary) as well as the contracted Valmet Automotive plant in Finland and, the automaker said,  “marks the final puzzle piece in Mercedes-Benz’s flexible and highly efficient compact car production network”.

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BBAC president and CEO Frank Deiss said: “BBAC is Mercedes-Benz’s worldwide most comprehensive plant, manufacturing sedans, SUVs, engines and from now on also compact cars. Therefore, the localisation of compact cars marks a key milestone for the company. It will significantly drive BBAC’s local production volume, paving us the way to grow furthermore. In fact BBAC is already today the biggest Mercedes-Benz passenger car plant worldwide.”

The new plant’s paint shop has dry scrubbers for top coat application that do not require any water and a low emission oven.

There are about 10,800 staff – 800 dedicated to the new compact car site in the ramp up phase.

Some have been trained abroad, mainly at Rastatt, but partially also at the plants in Kecskemet and Sindelfingen.