Hyundai has announced plans to build two more plants in China with local partner BAIC Motor in order to meet demand in its largest global market.
Located in Cangzhou, Hebei province and Chongqing city, the new production facilities will be operated by the Beijing Hyundai Motor Company (BHMC) joint venture and will boost local output by about 57 percent.
The factories will begin production in the second half of 2016, and annual output will be 300,000 vehicles each, BAIC said in a statement to Hong Kong stock exchange cited by Bloomberg.
The South Korean carmaker already has three plants in China, where it is the fourth best-selling foreign brand. Like competitors Volkswagen AG and General Motors, Hyundai wants to make and sell more vehicles in China as urbanization and economic growth increase demand.
Hyundai’s sister company Kia Motors will also increase capacity at its third plant in Jiangsu province to 450,000 units by 2016 from the current 300,000. As a result, the two carmakers’ combined output in China will reach 2.7 million units in 2018, compared with 1.95 million vehicles this year.
Hyundai alone has a production capacity of 1.05 million units in China and plans to increase it to 1.65 million units by 2018. The South Korean automaker has sold more than 1 million vehicles in China in the first 11 months of the year, up 7.7 percent from a year earlier.
Hyundai forecast sales in China would amount to 1.13 million vehicles this year, including trucks. China is the automaker’s best-selling market worldwide, followed by the United States (720,783 sales in 2013) and South Korea (640,698 sales in 2013).
Note: China-exclusive Hyundai Mistra sedan pictured
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