Geely Auto will form a joint venture with Vietnam's Tasco to build a $168 million plant with a design capacity of 75,000 vehicles per year in the first phase.

Geely Auto Group has struck a joint venture deal in Vietnam to pave the way for vehicle production in the Southeast Asian country by 2026.

Vietnamese company Tasco signed a partnership agreement with Geely Auto on September 23 to assemble Geely vehicles in Vietnam and distribute them, according to a statement yesterday.

Tasco's assembly joint venture with Geely Auto is a CKD (Completely Knocked Down) project that will be assembled in Vietnam using imported parts and components, with a designed capacity of 75,000 vehicles per year in the first phase on a 30-hectare site.

The total investment in the project is estimated to be around $168 million, with Tasco contributing 64 percent and Geely Group 36 percent.

The joint venture will initially assemble vehicles under the Lynk & Co and Geely Auto brands, with the possibility of expanding to other brands in the future.

The plant is expected to break ground in the first half of 2025, with the first model to be delivered to customers in early 2026.

It will serve the Vietnamese market and export to countries with which Vietnam has free trade agreements.

Tasco and Geely will also work together to attract other investors to improve the parts supply chain, invest in a Southeast Asian automotive research and development center, and establish an automotive technology training university.

In addition, Tasco Auto, a member company of Tasco, will officially become a Geely Auto dealer.

Tasco and Geely Auto also signed a memorandum of strategic cooperation with the Economic Zone Management Board and Industrial Parks of Thai Binh Province.

“The strategic cooperation between Tasco and Geely in Thái Bình comes at a very opportune time. The Vietnamese automobile market is full of potential, with a car ownership rate of about 63 vehicles per 1,000 people compared to over 300 vehicles in Thailand,” said Ngô Đông Hải, Secretary of the Vietnamese Communist Party's Thai Binh Province.

Vietnam's automobile market is expected to grow at an average annual rate of 14-16 percent by 2030, with total car consumption reaching 1 million to 1.1 million units, and by 2045, it is expected to rise to 4.5 million to 4.7 million units, he said.

Geely is one of China's largest car companies, with access to more than 80 countries and regions and more than 16 million customers.

From January to August this year, Geely Auto sales reached 1.31 million units, up 33 percent year-on-year, exceeding the 3.3 percent growth rate of China's auto industry.

Geely's export sales in the first eight months of 2024 rose nearly 70 percent to 280,000 units.

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