Great Wall Motor to boost small car capacity

Shanghai, August 7 (Gasgoo.com) Chinese automaker Great Wall Motor Co (2333.HK) unveild plans to spend about 8.47 billion yuan ($1.24 bln) to expand its production facility in North China's port city of Tianjin, reports China Securities Journal Friday.

The investment would boost Great Wall Motor's capacity at its Tianjin plant to a 500,000 units a year. The SUV maker announced to invest 3 billion yuan in building its Tianjin plant this February, which include projects of annual production of 50,000 complete vehicles, annual assembly of 150,000 sets of KDs, production of 150,000 sets of auto parts and a logistics center.

Great Wall Motor spokesman Shang Yugui told the newspaper that the company has to increase production capacity early on to meet growing demand for its small cars, especially when the market rebound from the global economic crisis years later.

Shang said Great Wall would produce A-Class cars at the new facility, which is to be fully completed by 2012.

In a separate report, Great Wall Motor's deputy general manager, Bai Xuefei, confirmed that the company is reconsidering the possibility of an A-share listing but no final timeline has been set yet.

Great Wall Motor, the largest Chinese sport utility vehicle (SUV) maker without a foreign partner, unveiled a plan in October 2007 to issue up to 121.7 million A shares in Shanghai.

In the first half of 2009, Great Wall Motor sold 91,000 cars in total, with its mainland sales hiking 110% from the same period of last year. It targeted sales of 200,000 units for ths year.