China regulator said to agree to Tengzhong deal for Hummer

Shanghai, August 24 (Gasgoo.com) Officials of China's Ministry of Commerce (MOC) have made an agreement on Friday to give the green light for Tengzhong's acquisition of Hummer from General Motors, the National Business Daily reports on Monday, citing one of the ministry officials.

The unidentified official told the newspaper that "we find no excuse to block it as Tengzhong assured in its application that the deal would not involve intellectual property right issues or local production projects."

Tengzhong said it would retain Hummer's senior management and operational team as well as its dealership network if it succeeds in purchasing the U.S. brand.

Analysts have been predicting that the deal may fail to get approval from regulators as the gas-guzzling nature of the U.S. SUV runs counter to China's attempts to develop a globally competitive auto industry by focusing on fuel-efficient vehicles.

Tengzhong said that in the past months the two parties have been talking about many substantive details, some of which have to be discussed and finalized one by one.

In a related story, Bloomberg reports that executives from Sichuan Tengzhong are expected to arrive in Detroit early this week for more negotiations with GM and an agreement could be signed and announced during the trip.