Volkswagen begins construction of new vehicle plant in China
May 20, 2013
Volkswagen has begun construction of a new vehicle plant in Changsha, Hunan Province, China. The factory being built in cooperation with the Chinese joint venture Shanghai-Volkswagen (SVW) will have annual capacity of 300,000 vehicles.
“We are expanding our capacity in China to four million vehicles per year by 2018 in order to meet demand from our Chinese customers,” stated Prof Dr Jochem Heizmann, Member of the Board of Management of Volkswagen AG with responsibility for China and President and CEO of Volkswagen Group China, at the contract signing ceremony and ground-breaking in Changsha.
Ground-breaking ceremony in Changsha
The new plant in Changsha is scheduled for completion by the end of 2015 and will house a complete production facility with press shop, body shop, paint shop and final assembly.
The Changsha plant is part of the €9.8 billion investment program by the two Chinese joint ventures, Shanghai-Volkswagen and FAW-Volkswagen. The investments focus on developing new models and expanding production capacity. The Changsha factory is one of seven new plants to be built in China this year and over the coming years.
Shanghai-Volkswagen currently operates vehicle plants in Shanghai and Nanjing as well as Yizheng in the province of Jiangsu. Further factories are being built in Ningbo and in Urumqi.
FAW-Volkswagen operates vehicle plants in Changchun and Chengdu. The factory in Foshan which is currently under construction will be FAW-Volkswagen’s first plant in Southern China.
Together with its partners FAW-Volkswagen and Shanghai-Volkswagen, the Volkswagen Group currently builds 20 models of the Volkswagen, ŠKODA and Audi brands in China
