China Great Wall Motor to expand in western Europe

Chinese automaker Great Wall Motor Co (2333.HK), which has already started selling its Hover sport utility vehicles in Italy, aims to expand into other west European markets in 2 to 3 years, a senior executive said on Thursday.

"We already have a dealer in Italy. We are in contact with potential partners in other key European countries such as Germany, France, Britain and Spain," the executive told Reuters.

"It takes time for us to break into these markets, possibly 2 to 3 years."

Great Wall plans to have separate dealers in each of these countries, but will have one dealer each for northern, central and eastern Europe, said the executive, who asked not to be identified due to the sensitive nature of the matter.

Great Wall, whose Hover X240 SUV got a 4-star rating in a crash test conducted by Australia's ANCAP, a test authority, aims to more than double its sales in the country to 7,000-8,000 units in a market it entered in June 2009, the executive added.