GM to acquire Chinese auto-assembly plant

SHANGHAI, China (AP) _ General Motors Corp. said Wednesday it would join its Chinese partner in acquiring a car assembly plant in northeastern China. <br><br>The deal will be signed Dec. 20, said Daphne

Wednesday, December 11th 2002, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

SHANGHAI, China (AP) _ General Motors Corp. said Wednesday it would join its Chinese partner in acquiring a car assembly plant in northeastern China.

The deal will be signed Dec. 20, said Daphne Zheng, a spokeswoman for GM in Shanghai. She wouldn't say how much it was worth but said it involved GM, Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp., and their Chinese joint venture, Shanghai GM.

The assembly plant to be taken over is in Yantai, a city in Shandong province, Zheng said. It is owned by the local government, she said.

The plant's output capacity wasn't immediately clear.

Earlier this month, GM said Shanghai GM's vehicle sales would reach nearly 110,000 units this year, almost double last year's figure.

In October, Toyota Motor Corp. began mass-producing cars in China in a $100 million joint venture based in the northeastern city of Tianjin. And last month, Honda Motor Co. said it had been cleared to build a $193 million factory in China, its second.