General Motors to build largest Asia-Pacific proving ground in China

Shanghai. October 11 (Shanghai)-General Motors's largest automotive proving ground in Asia-Pacific region will be located in Anhui province, just several hundred miles from Shanghai. The construction work will start tomorrow, China Business News reported today.

Shanghai GM, a joint venture between GM and its Chinese partner SAIC will invest around 1.9 billion Yuan( $25,270,998) to build its largest proving ground in the Asia-Pacific region.

"It will facilitate GM and SAIC's efforts to develop a full lineup of new products, meanwhile assist the joint venture in developing vehicles tailed to the local market," according to an announcement made by General Motors (China).

Insiders say that the upcoming proving ground will overshadow almost all existing ones in China with the most advanced testing and evaluating facilities.

However, the new proving ground is a late-comer. Four years ago, Volkswagen had already set up the first advanced passenger vehicle proving ground in China with a total investment of 1.2 billion Yuan ($15,960,630).

"GM has several production facilities in China with the products covering all segments. It's high time to build an international-standard proving ground," said Zhong Shi, a famed industry analyst.

Actually, the idea of building such a project is dated back to 2003 when GM and its Chinese partner SAIC chose Chongming, a suburban island of Shanghai, but the construction work did not get started due to transportation and environmental concerns.