Great Wall Motor has signed a deal with Vietnam's TAG Group with the aim of starting to assemble cars in Vietnam by the end of 2025.

Great Wall Motor has signed a deal in Vietnam to assemble vehicles in the Southeast Asian country as it pushes ahead with localized production overseas.

The Chinese automaker said on September 16 that it has signed a memorandum of cooperation with Vietnam's TAG Group, and the two sides will cooperate on CKD assembly there.

CKD, known as Completely Knock Down, is a trade term that refers to a production method in which a producing country imports parts in the form of knocked-down kits and assembles them locally.

Localization efforts through knocked-down assembly typically include both CKD and SKD (Semi Knocked Down) models.

On January 8, Great Wall Motor said it signed a deal with Malaysian company EP Manufacturing Berhad to assemble vehicles in Malaysia based on the CKD model, its first CKD project in the ASEAN region.

Great Wall Motor aims to start building vehicles in Vietnam by the end of 2025, relying on its 34 years of experience in making cars, as well as the localization resources of TAG Group, it said.

The move is a step in the accelerated globalization of Great Wall Motor, which already has three vehicle production bases in Thailand and Brazil, and a number of KD plants around the world, it said.

In Southeast Asia, Great Wall Motor has achieved regular operations in markets such as Thailand, Malaysia, Laos, Brunei and Vietnam, it said.

Great Wall Motor is one of the Chinese companies actively expanding into international markets, as competition at home grows fiercer.

China is encouraging automakers to export so-called knock-down kits, meaning that key parts of a vehicle will be produced domestically and then shipped to the destination market for final assembly, Bloomberg said in a September 12 report.

The move aims to keep key EV technology in the country, according to the report.

Great Wall Motor sold 1,230,530 vehicles in 2023, up 15.27 percent from a year earlier, according to data compiled by CnEVPost.

It sold 316,018 vehicles overseas in 2023, up 82.48 percent year-on-year, contributing 25.68 percent of all vehicle sales.

In the January-August period of this year, Great Wall Motor's overseas sales were 280,139 vehicles, up 54.2 percent year-on-year, contributing 37.58 percent of its vehicle sales.

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