Chang'an Motor, China's newly-crowned third-largest automaker, will build an assembly plant in Viet Nam to produce light-duty trucks.

The company's affiliate Chongqing Chang'an Kuayue Automobile has signed an agreement with a Vietnamese partner to jointly build the plant, which is expected to start production during the first half of next year, said sources from Chang'an Kuayue.

The initial investment in the plant will be US$15 million and annual production capacity will be 3,000 trucks, sources said.

The plant's annual capacity will increase to 5,000 units within the next two to three years.

Chang'an Kuayue will ship completed knocked-down (CKD) components to Vietnam to supply the plant.

Changan Kuayue, based in west China's Chongqing Municipality, has exported more than 300 built-up light-duty trucks to Vietnam so far this year.

The company now has a total production capacity of 30,000 light-duty trucks, agricultural-use and other special-purpose vehicles a year in Chongqing.

Chang'an Motor is one of many Chinese automakers to build CKD assembly plants overseas to boost exports.

Zhongxing Automobile, the mainland-Taiwan joint venture based in north China's Hebei Province, expects to build four to five plants in North Africa and South America in coming years.

Zhongxing, which is producing pickups and sport utility vehicles, now has three plants in Egypt, Vietnam and Turkey.

Chery, a carmaker in east China's Anhui Province, will start to produce cars in a plant in Iran next month and is also in negotiations with companies in Pakistan and Venezuela to build new plants in those two nations.

(China Daily August 3, 2004)