BAIC builds Zhuzhou plant for own-brand PVs

Beijing Automotive Industry Holding Corp. (BAIC) has recently started building a new plant in central China’s Hunan province. The plant will produce BAIC’s own brand passenger vehicles from 2010.
    
The new plant is located in Zhuzhou, an industrial city in eastern Hunan province.
    
A BAIC spokesman says BAIC chose Zhuzhou for the strong local parts supply base as well as its vicinity to markets in southern and eastern China.
    
The spokesman says the Zhuzhou plant will eventually have annual capacity of 200,000 units.
    
Total investment in the plant will be about 5 billion yuan ($731 million). The plant will have a floor area of some 530,000 square meters.
    
"Its products will include light trucks, pickups, light buses, SUVs and vans", the spokesman says, adding that the plant will start production sometime in 2010.
    
A source involved in the planning of the Zhuzhou plant says the new plant is scheduled to start operation in March 2010.
    
The source adds the new plant will mainly produce passenger vehicles.
    
He says once the new plant is put into use, BAIC will shift production of the models currently being built in its Beijing plant to the new plant. The Beijing plant makes a series of SUVs, pickups, light trucks and buses at present.
    
"The Beijing plant will mainly produce vehicles for the military in the future", he says.
    
He also says BAIC is likely to produce sedans in the Zhuzhou plant. A report the Beijing municipal government released earlier this year also i ndicates the products to be made in the new plant include sedans.
    
But the BAIC spokesman denies BAIC plans to make sedans in the Zhuzhou plant.
    
The source says the new plant’s planned annual output in 2010 is between 50,000 units and 70,000 units. The figure is expected to reach 200,000 units in 2013, he adds.
    
In addition to its own plant, BAIC has two joint-venture automakers making passenger vehicles at present: Beijing Benz-DaimlerChrysler Automotive Co. and Beijing Hyundai Motor Co. Both joint ventures are located in suburban Beijing.