Shanghai (ZXZC)- Great Wall Motor(GWM) hosted a ceremony to mark the start of the construction of its eighth vehicle plant on November 11. Located in Taizhou, a prefecture-level city in central Jiangsu province in eastern China, the plant is to involve a total investment of almost RMB8 billion ($1.14 billion).

The new plant is built to manufacture vehicles based on Haval’s new platform and GWM’s NEVs, which are expected to roll off the production line in December, 2020. An automobile technology industrial park will also be set up there.  

The Baoding-based auto manufacturer has improved its global production footprint in 2019. In June, the plant in Tula of Russia went into operation and September witnessed the completion of its first facility in the south China—Chongqing Yongchuan smart plant. Only one month earlier, GWM started constructing its Pinghu plant in Zhejiang that will work on both production and R&D.

In the future, the Chinese biggest SUV and pickup producer will form a triangular distribution, involving three areas in north, east and south China.

Besides, the automaker had gained year-on-year growth in both monthly auto sales and year-to-date sales for five consecutive months as of October, 2019. It saw Oct. sales rise 4.48% from a year ago to 115,015 units and the year’s cumulative sales total 839,128 units (+6.66%).

As it explores more shares in overseas market, GWM exported 55,117 vehicles between Jan. and Oct., a year-on-year leap of 37.96%. Of that, the Oct. export volume grew 10.9% to 4,363 units as well (photo source: Great Wall Motor).