German auto giant Volkswagen AG on Wednesday opened a new plant that aims to produce 300,000 cars annually in Foshan city in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong.
The plant run by the FAW-Volkswagen joint venture will eventually double its initial annual capacity of 300,000 units, the company said.
“For three decades, Volkswagen Group has been China’s reliable partner and an engine for the economic, technological and sustainable development of the nation’s auto industry,” Jochem Heizmann, head of Volkswagen Group China, said at the opening ceremony.
“The Foshan branch will offer 6,500 skilled jobs in the first phase, [and] cultivate new talents and improve infrastructure for a more prosperous, more innovative, and more sustainable auto industry in south China,” Heizmann said.
Volkswagen said its sales in China, the company’s largest market, soared by 23 per cent to 2.8 million of the 9.1 million vehicles it sold worldwide last year.
Last year, the company said it planned to invest 14 billion euros by 2016 to develop new models and expand production at FAW-Volkswagen and a second joint venture with the Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp.
The two joint ventures produce more than 20 Volkswagen, Skoda and Audi models in China.