Beijing (dpa) – German carmaker Volkswagen AG on Friday said it planned to build a new plant in the eastern Chinese city of Ningbo to meet growing demand in China. “China has become one of the largest and one of the most important markets for Volkswagen Group,” Karl-Thomas Neumann, the head of Volkswagen Group China, said at a signing ceremony in Ningbo. Neumann said Volkswagen aimed to increase annual sales in China to 3 million vehicles by 2014 through an “unprecedented investment program.” Volkswagen said earlier that it expected to sell nearly two million vehicles in China in 2011. The company said it planned to invest some 14 billion euros (18 billion dollars) by 2016 to develop new models and expand production in the world's largest car market. The Ningbo plant has a designed production capacity of about 300,000 vehicles annually and is scheduled to be completed by 2014 as the sixth plant operated by the Shanghai Volkswagen joint venture. Volkswagen's two joint-venture companies produce more than 20 Volkswagen, Skoda and Audi vehicles in China. Shanghai Volkswagen, formed by Volkswagen and the Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC), already runs three production lines in Shanghai and one in nearby Nanjing, with a plant in Yizheng under construction. The FAW-Volkswagen joint venture operates two production lines, one in the north-eastern city of Changchun and another in the south-western city of Chengdu. It is also constructing a new plant in the southern city of Foshan. Volkswagen said in May that the Chinese government had also approved its plans for a locally branded electric car to be produced with one of its partners, the FAW Group. BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/mHQiR Tags: Autos, China, Volkswagen Section: Business, East Asia, Europe
