GM Pondering New Chinese Plant to Meet Demand

The Chinese market is posting a huge increase and carmakers building cars in the country have turned to all kind of measures supposed to help them keep up with demand. But General Motors is trying to go beyond adding new shifts or similar strategies and might build a new factory to support its impressive growth in China.

GM's Chinese representatives have already confirmed that a new factory is now under consideration but refused to provide more details on the matter. All we know is that it could arrive "in the near future".

"We have enough capacity to build the cars we need to sell this year and we need to continue to look for ways of increasing our capacity. That will mean we will have to add a new plant some time in the near future," Kelvin Wale, president of General Motors China operations, was quoted as saying by gasgoo.com.

He denied however that a new plant could open its doors this year. "It is physically impossible to do that so quickly," he said.

General Motors, together with its joint ventures, sold a total of 219,192 vehicles in January in China, which represents a 97 percent increase as compared to the same month of 2009. Buick sales rose 90.6 percent to 46,853 units while Chevrolet deliveries were increased by 206.8 percent to 49,475 cars.

“Demand in January was strong in nearly all market segments,” Wale said. “It is a positive sign for 2010 as a whole following last year’s industry record. GM continued to address the needs of our customers by rolling out a new small car, a new lower-medium product and a new light truck in January. Our goal is to remain the market leader among global automakers in the world’s largest vehicle market.”