Photo: Mpho Mojapelo
Hyundai Motors have put their Chongqing plant up for sale at $505 million as part of a restructure to boost the company’s car sales and presence in the Chinese market.
The Korean automaker will also be selling their Changzou plant by the end of the year, reducing Hyundai’s total number of operational factories in China from five to two.
A spokesperson for Hyundai commented that details about the buyer of the plant and date of sale have not yet been confirmed. The sale of the plant comes just two months after the automaker announced plans to reconstruct its Chinese business.
The Chongqing plant was built as part of a joint venture with Beijing Automotive Group and began production in 2017 with a capacity of 30,000 units in annual production. However, operations at the plant were halted a year ago after a nosedive in car sales.
Hyundai Motor and Kia sold around 1.8 million vehicles in China in 2016, but this plummeted to 909,000 in 2019 and around 339,000 last year.
The starting price of the plant equates to around 3.68 billion yuan.
