The popularity of Honda’s XR-V and the Civic Sedan have contributed to increased sales for the company in China, making it consider the addition of yet another manufacturing facility.
The automaker confirmed that the additional plant was discussed with their local partner, Dongfeng, but the project has yet to be approved, as one of Honda’s Beijing spokesperson said.
However, if everything goes as planned, then the two companies are believed to invest “hundreds of millions of dollars”, according to Reuters, citing Nikkei, in the facility that will be located in Wuhan and will initially produce 120,000 passenger cars annually, once it will become operative in 2019, boosting Honda’s output capacity in the People’s Republic by roughly a fifth.
Honda’s new factory will be its seventh in China, and will help boost local car sales to 1.07 million vehicles by the end of 2016, up from 1.01 million cars delivered in 2015, when it registered a 33 percent jump over the previous year, an achievable target considering that car sales in China strengthened in September for the fifth consecutive month.