Maple, the Shanghai-based arm of China's biggest privately-owned carmaker Geely, is planning a 10-fold increase of its annual production capacity over the next five years.

Xu Gang, chairman of Maple, told China Daily yesterday that the company would spend nearly 3 billion yuan (US$370 million) in enhancing its production capacity to 300,000 cars a year by 2010 from 30,000 units at present.

The capacity of Maple's existing plant in Shanghai will grow to 50,000 units at the end of this year from 30,000 units, Xu said. The company also plans to build two new plants in Shanghai with one having a capacity of 200,000 units and the other 50,000 units.

"Maple's enlargement is an important part of Geely's ambition to produce 2 million cars annually by 2015," he said.

Geely, headquartered in East China's Zhejiang Province, announced earlier this month that it would build two plants in central Hunan Province and northwest Gansu Province with an initial investment of 800 million yuan (US$98.7 million). Both plants will have a yearly production capacity of 100,000 cars.

The parent of Hong Kong-listed Geely Auto Holdings Co is also considering building a manufacturing base in Northeast China, said Geely Chairman Li Shufu, one of the 100 Forbes-listed richest people in the Chinese mainland.

Besides Maple, Geely now has two manufacturing bases in Zhejiang with a total capacity of more than 200,000 cars.

Geely sold 115,800 cars in the first 10 months of this year, including almost 20,000 units from Maple. The group expects to increase its total sales to 140,000 units this year from 100,000 units in 2004.

Geely, together with Maple, now produces 1.0-to-1.8-litre own-branded cars retailing between 30,000 yuan (US$3,700) and 80,000 yuan (US$9,870), such as Merrie, Haoqing, Ulion, Freedom Cruiser, Hisoon, Marindo and Hysoul.

Xu said Maple would launch at least two new models per year until 2010.

China is the third largest and fastest-growing car market in the world. Sales of domestically-made vehicles totalled 4.59 million units from January to October this year, up 11.04 percent from the same period last year, according to statistics from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.

Sales of made-in-China passenger vehicles - cars, mini vans, multi-purpose vehicles and sport utility vehicles - climbed by 17.92 percent year-on-year to 3.12 million units during the period, statistics showed.

Geely, seen as one of the most entrepreneurial Chinese carmakers by industry observers, is also penetrating the overseas market with a target to sell 1.3 million cars abroad by 2015.

In May this year, Geely clinched a deal with a Malaysian partner to assemble its own-branded cars in the Southeast Asian country.

Production of Geely cars in Malaysia will begin later this year with a planned output of 30,000 cars next year.

(China Daily November 15, 2005)