GM China has annual capacity of 1.66 mln cars

Shanghai, December 29 (Gasgoo.com) Shanghai GM and SAIC-GM-Wuling, the two big Chinese joint ventures of U.S. auto giant General Motors, now have a combined annual capacity of 1.66 million units, said xinhuanet.com today. The sales of GM China are expected to top 1 million this year.

On Dec. 17, Shanghai GM opened a new passenger-vehicle plant in Shenyang city of northeast China. The plant has an annual production capacity of 150,000 units and is one of three facilities worldwide (the other two in the U.S. and S. Korea) to produce the Chevrolet Cruze compact car. The launch of this new facility has brought the annual capacity of Shanghai GM to 760,000 vehicles.

GM's another Chinese venture, mini-vehicle maker SAIC-GM-Wuling, completed construction of its West Plant's second-phase project to raise its annual capacity to 900,000 vehicles. Up to now, GM has a total annual capacity of 1.66 vehicles, plus the output of 1.6 million engines. GM has surpassed Volkswagen to become the largest global automaker in China.

SAIC-GM-Wuling has said that it will achieve sales of 650,000 vehicles this year, up by 100,000 over last year and with 46% market share of China's mini-cars to lead the country's mini-car sales for three straight years.

Shanghai GM achieved sales of 410,000 vehicles in the first eleven months of 2008. The combined sales of the two GM ventures in China will top one million again this year. GM China sold 1.03 million vehicles in 2007, up 18.5% year on year.