Volkswagen Group has received the Chinese government green light for two more vehicle plants in China, continuing its long-term growth strategy in the world’s largest market for passenger cars.
During the German-Chinese government consultations in Berlin, final approval was granted on Tuesday (28 June, 2011) for the plants to be built at Foshan and Yizheng. Prof.
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VW AG chairman Martin Winterkorn signed appropriate declarations together with the presidents of the Chinese partner organisations.
The factory at Yizheng, in Jiangsu Province in eastern China, is to be developed together with Shanghai Volkswagen and the plant at Foshan, in Guangdong Province in southern China, will be built with the FAW-Volkswagen joint venture.
The first documents for the development of the two sites were signed in the summer of 2010.
“China is already the world’s largest sales market for automobiles and further substantial growth is expected in the future,” Winterkorn said as the contracts were signed at the federal chancellor’s office in Berlin.
“The Volkswagen Group intends to play a major role in shaping this growth with new environmentally compatible models and the expansion of local production capacity. Our new plants show that Volkswagen remains a strong motor for the Chinese automobile industry.”
Each of the two plants will be designed for an annual capacity of 300,000 vehicles and production is due to start in 2013.
“The new factories are a key element in our plans to increase annual production capacity in China to 3m vehicles in the medium term together with local partners,” said Karl-Thomas Neumann, president and CEO of Volkswagen Group China.
In view of the dynamic development of the Chinese automobile market, Volkswagen had boosted its investment program there to EUR10.6bn euros for the period from 2011 to 2015. In addition to the two new plants, plans have already been announced to expand production capacity at each of the existing Nanjing and Chengdu plants to between 300,000 and 350,000 vehicles per year.
