Three-year intellectual property rights (IPR) disputes between US auto giant General Motors (GM) and Chinese car-maker Chery have been solved finally and amicably, with relevant parties agreeing to withdraw all lawsuits.

According to a statement jointly issued by the two sides, the GM Daewoo auto technology company, GM and Chery have reached conciliatory agreement to end all the disputes between them, and all the relevant lawsuits have been or will be withdrawn.

The relevant parties, extending appreciation to the all-out effort made by the Chinese government in this regard, will put focus on their own businesses, according to the statement.

Chery company, which is based in eastern China's Anhui Provinces, has a short history and is one of the few successful auto companies in China producing cars with Chinese brands.

Chery has been ranked among the ten biggest automakers in China for years.

GM's subsidiary, the General Motors China Group, had claimed that it was probing suspected copying of models of GM Daewoo MatizI and Magnus by China's Chery company.

Chery rejected the allegation of IPR infringement and said the car models were developed by its own technologies.

The disputes were intensified when Chery introduced a well-received compact model QQ more than two year ago and triggered an intellectual property fight with GM over its Spark model.

Chery saw drastic sales growth of its QQ and possibly undermined the market share of Spark, on which GM had put much hope. The spat was covered extensively in newspapers.

Partly due to this IPR friction between Chery and General Motors, a major giant strategic partners of the Shanghai Automotive Industrial Corporation (SAIC), the SAIC officially undid the merger with Chery a year ago.

Heads of China's ministry of commerce along with concerned departments held meetings on the solution to IPR disputes between GM and Chery, Zhou Wenzhong, China's vice foreign minister, once told reporters at a news briefing.

"China attaches great importance to the protection work of IPR," he said. China made an explicit commitment to protect IPR when it entered the World Trade Organization in 2001.

Figures from Chinese customs show in the first half of this year, Chery Automotive Company exported 3,419 cars, up 130 percent year on year.

During the period, the export volume of the Chery Company, leading the country's car makers in exports, reached US$17.16 million, up 120 percent year on year and accounting for 66.5 percent of China's total car export volume.

(Xinhua News Agency November 19, 2005)