Photo: Great Wall's Haval H6 crossover

Automotive News China | 2019/2/26

Great Wall Motor Co., China’s largest truckmaker, is expanding production capacity in China despite the market downturn.

The company signed an agreement with the local government last week to build an 8 billion yuan ($1.2 billion) assembly plant in Taizhou, a city in east China’s Jiangsu province.

In addition to light vehicles, the factory will produce interiors, exteriors and chassis.

Great Wall didn’t release additional details about the plant.

The Taizhou factory will become the company’s eighth production site in China.

Great Wall assembles vehicles in three North China cities -- Baoding, Xushui and Tianjin. Its plant in the southwest China municipality of Chongqing is slated to start production before the end of the year.

The company is also set to build vehicles at plants in the east China cities of Zhangjiagang, Rizhao and Pinghu.

The Zhangjiagang factory will be jointly owned by Great Wall and BMW Group. Due to begin production in 2021, the factory will build EVs for BMW’s Mini brand as well as Great Wall’s proprietary marques.

Outside China, Great Wall expects to open an assembly plant in the Tula Oblast region of central Russia this year, with maximum annual capacity set at 150,000 vehicles.

Great Wall is the largest crossover maker as well as the biggest pickup manufacturer in China.

It seeks to increase annual sales 14 percent to 1.2 million in 2019 with an expanded product lineup and additional capacity.

In January, Great Wall’s China sales edged up 1.5 percent from a year earlier to 111,715 behind demand for pickups.

Last year, deliveries slid 1.6 percent to 1,053,039 vehicles.