Work begins on China's new Volkswagen plant

Chinese plant will manufacture 300,000 vehicles per year Changsha - Arabstoday  Construction work has begun on the new Volkswagen vehicle plant in Changsha in the province of Hunan, south-central China. The factory is being built in cooperation with the Chinese joint venture Shanghai-Volkswagen (SVW). "We are expanding our capacity in China to four million vehicles per year by 2018 in order to meet demand from our Chinese customers,” Professor Dr Jochem Heizmann, Member of the Board of Management of Volkswagen AG with responsibility for China and President and CEO of Volkswagen Group China, said at the contract signing ceremony and groundbreaking in Changsha.
The new plant in Changsha is scheduled for completion end of 2015 and will manufacture approx. 300,000 vehicles per year. A complete production facility with press shop, body shop, paint shop and final assembly is being built. Priority is being given to reducing energy and water consumption as well as CO2 and solvent emissions, and to cutting back waste volumes in line with the “Think Blue. Factory.” programme. According to Heizmann: “We will meet our environmental responsibility in Changsha and set another milestone in resource efficient production with the new factory.”
The Changsha plant is part of the €9.8 billion investment programme being realised by the two Chinese joint ventures in the period to 2015. The aim of the investment projects financed from the cash flow of the two joint ventures Shanghai-Volkswagen and FAW-Volkswagen is to consolidate the Volkswagen Group’s leading position on the Chinese passenger car market. The investments focus on developing new models and expanding production capacity. The Changsha factory is one of seven new plants to be built in China this year and over the coming years. The plants will also create new skilled jobs.
Shanghai-Volkswagen currently operates vehicle plants in Shanghai and Nanjing as well as Yizheng in the province of Jiangsu. Further factories are being built in Ningbo and in Urumqi under the “Go West” strategy.
FAW-Volkswagen operates vehicle plants in Changchun and Chengdu. The factory in Foshan which is currently under construction will be FAW-Volkswagen’s first plant in Southern China. Together with its partners FAW-Volkswagen and Shanghai-Volkswagen, the Volkswagen Group currently builds 20 models of the Volkswagen, ŠKODA and Audi brands in China.