Hyundai Seeks Third Plant in China

Things are going fairly well for Hyundai, the South Korean manufacturer which goes from record to record in several regions of the world. After announcing enthusiastic sales in Canada and in the United States, Hyundai is now planning to boost its Chinese operations as well with the construction of a third plant in the country. How exactly it plans to build the facility is still unclear but gasgoo.com writes that Hyundai wants a new factory following growing demand in the region.

First reports are indicating that Hyundai has already started talks with Chinese manufacturers who could support it in building the plant. Citing an unnamed industry source, the aforementioned source revealed that buying an ailing Chinese manufacturer who's currently struggling to cope with the recession is also a possible scenario, but things remain uncertain for the time being.

"Hyundai will build its third factory with an initial annual capacity of 200,000 vehicles, and later expand the capacity to 300,000 vehicles," the source was quoted as saying.

In case Hyundai starts construction next year, the plant should open its doors sometimes in 2012 and have, as the source familiar with the matter hinted, an estimated capacity of 200,000 vehicles per year.

At this time, Hyundai produces up to 600,000 cars a year through its Beijing Hyundai joint venture it established together with BAIC. The alliance has two plants in the country and sold a total of 257,003 cars in the first half of this year, up 56% from a year earlier.

Hyundai recently boosted its 2009 Chinese sales target to 450,000 cars after the anti-recession measures taken by the Chinese government proved to be quite efficient.