China’s Great Wall Motors signs MoU with Indian state of Maharashtra for a new manufacturing plant

Great Wall Motors, a top Chinese (quite obvious, the name is as Chinese as it gets) automaker has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Maharashtrian Government for opening up a manufacturing plant in the state. This signing ceremony of this MoU was conducted virtually, and it was attended by James Yang, president of GWM India and Parker Shi. The Chief Minister of Maharashtra Uddhav Thackeray and  Maharashtrian Minister of Industries, Subhash Desai were also present during this ceremony. By opening up a manufacturing plant in Talegaon and a R & D centre in Bangalore, employment will be provided to over 3,000 individuals, and in uncertain times like these, these job opening will prove to be very helpful.

Talking about the Talegaon facility, GWM bought this factory over from General Motors. While General Motors operated this factory, they were able to produce 1,30,000 vehicles in a year, GWM on the other hand has said that they will be refreshing and modernising the facility with “state-of-the-art” and “world-class” technology. Furthermore Parker Shi went on to say, “This would be a highly automated plant in Talegaon, with advanced robotics technology integrated in many of the production processes.” As this is an ex-GM factory, it is already equipped with a logistics distribution center, training center, project management building, administrative office building and public facilities center.

The Chinese automaker has also planned on investing $1 billion (about Rs 7610 crore) in India, in a phased fashion. The Managing Director of GWM also said, “Overall we are committed to $1 billion of investment in India in a phased manner, which is directed towards manufacturing world class intelligent & premium products, R&D centre, building supply chain and providing jobs to over 3,000 people in a phased manner.”

It is surprising to see that this deal went through in spite of Indo-Chinese relations hitting a new low at this point in time.

GWM owns 4 brands, GWM EV, Haval and Wey and GWM Pickup and it seems that they could bring in the Haval and GWM EV vehicles in India around 2021. The Haval is an SUV based brad and EV refers to electric vehicles, in the coming future, the first few GWM products which could land in India would be a range of SUVs and EVs

Smart choices because the Indian market loves SUVs, and the trend of EVs has also seen a healthy rise. We could expect their vehicles to be competitively priced, and would be laden with a great range of features and equipment. With new brands being introduced in the country, competition would surely rise, and this kind of healthy competition makes things better for the customers. Let’s hope the Coronavirus crisis doesn’t delay the GWM from beginning their operations in India.