Fujian Provincial Department of Environmental Protection released announcement on February 4th that the plant construction for Lotus local production project has been approved and a production base with capacity of 200,000 units would be built in Jinjing, Jinjiang.

Approval information shows that Goldstar Lotus Auto Co. Ltd. passenger vehicle first-stage project is located at Jinjing Park, the key base for Fujian Provincial Equipment Manufacturing Industry. The project will provide annual capacity of 100,000 units C+-class SUV and 200,000 units 2.0L gasoline engines.

Goldstar Lotus Auto is a joint-venture company co-established by Proton Auto in Malaysia and Guangdong Goldstar Heavy Manufacturing Co., Ltd. In April, 215, Proton Auto signed agreement with Goldstar Heavy Manufacturing Co., Ltd. in Xiamen for investment with proportion of 40% and 50% respectively, and the rest will be funded by Lotus Auto.

In fact, this is not the first time that Proton Auto got in touch with Goldstar Heavy Manufacturing. As early as in 2005, Goldstar Heavy Manufacturing had intention to introduce Lotus Auto into local production, but its lack of passenger vehicle production certificate failed the process.

At that time, Youngman Automobile attracted Lotus Auto with its certification and Youngman-Lotus was established in 2006 in the form of technological cooperation. In 2012, the cooperative agreement between Youngman Automobile and Proton Auto came to end. Youngman-Lotus encountered halted production in 2015 due to its bad operation.

In the year 2015, Proton cooperated with Goldstar Heavy Manufacturing again to plan for the local production of Lotus Auto. According to agreement, Goldstar will focus on the R&D, production and sales of Lotus cars, engines and parts, as well as providing related after-sales services. The project will be put into production in 2019, with the first product as a light SUV model.