With General Motors India appointing three Chinese nationals on the company's board, the world's largest auto manufacturer - China - may have now gained a firm foothold in the second fastest growing auto market.
Nine Chinese executives will also bag senior positions in the company's Indian operations.
Mr Karl Slym, President and Managing Director, GM India, said on Thursday that the new board has three members each from GM and Chinese partner Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC), with effect from February 1.
Asked if any special approvals were needed from the Government as the company was domestically employing Chinese workforce, he said, "We don't fall in the same bracket as telecom; so, there is no security issue here as such with Chinese board members and employees.
But of course, since it's a board change, we do need to inform and get the approval -which is in place."
The Detroit-based GM recently sold its Indian subsidiary to newly formed Hong Kong-based entity, GM-SAIC Investment Ltd. Both GM and SAIC hold an equal 50 per cent stake in the new company, which is meant to "capture business opportunities in Asia's emerging markets". The deal had been finalised in December last year.
Mr Slym said that new vehicles under the partnership would be introduced by the beginning of 2012, the first product being a sub-one-tonne light commercial vehicle (LCV) available in three body styles. The production capacity at the Talegaon plant would also be increased to three lakh a year by 2012-13. "The CVs will be manufactured at the Halol plant and we're setting up a whole new network for these vehicles in the next 20 months. The new passenger cars will be made at Talegaon and will be branded as Chevrolet.
Localisation from day one would be 80 per cent," he said.
GM will invest substantially in its two plants for the tooling and infrastructure required to manufacture the new products.
"The industry average is $50 million per new vehicle. Our investment will be around the same for each new product," he said.
Mr Slym said that the company would also favourably look towards exporting the CVs, since GM globally does not make such products anywhere.
Full story
