Great Wall Motors will invest $520 million in a new car manufacturing plant in Russia. The plant will be build in the town of Uzlovaya in Tula Oblast, about 200 kilometer south of Moscow. Planned maximum annual capacity is 150.000 cars per year, which will make it Great Wall’s largest plant outside China. Construction will start later this year and manufacturing is scheduled to begin in 2017, reaching max capacity in 2020. The plant will create up to 2.500 new jobs in the Uzlovaya area.
In addition to Russia, Great Wall exports cars to countries including South Africa and Australia. The company unveiled plans last month to expand production in Malaysia for local and export sales to other Southeast Asian nations.
In February Great Wall announced it was postponing a planned car factory in Thailand, citing political unrest in that country. The original plan called for a $300 million investment in an SUV plant in the eastern Thai province of Rayong.
In an interview last summer, Wang Shihui, Great Wall’s deputy general manager of exports, said Chinese car companies must succeed abroad if they want to survive in China. “You need brand and global scale.”
