Chery Automobile, a major Chinese carmaker, inked a deal with an
Argentinian company on Thursday on jointly launching an assembly
plant in Uruguay.
The factory, a joint venture between Argentina SOCMA Group and
Chery, is expected to have an annual sales volume of 25,000
vehicles.
The first model produced by the factory will be TIGO, Chery's
first SUV model, and other models will be introduced later,
according to a Chery spokesman.
It is the first time a Chinese company has invested in an
automobile manufacturing plant in South America.
Chery, the fourth-largest carmaker in China's fast-expanding
market, sold 305,200 vehicles last year, up 61 percent from 2005,
according to previous reports.
hery has made great efforts to build CKD factories abroad in
recent years. Aside from the existing assembly plants in Iran and
Russia, it is looking for such opportunities in Egypt, Romania,
Turkey, Indonesia, Italy and Argentina.
(Xinhua News Agency March 23, 2007)