A Brazilian newspaper, O Estado de S. Paulo, reports that Chery Automobile is going to start making cars in the country within a couple of years. It says a new plant will have annual production capacity of 150,000 vehicles, which would be sold locally and exported to other Latin American countries and the U.S.
Chery already has a joint venture with Argentina’s SOCMA Group and Oferol of Uruguay that assembles vehicles in Uruguay, but it is capable of producing only 20,000 vehicles a year. The Montevideo plant was opened last year and makes Chery’s Tiggo range of SUVs and QQ compact cars for the Mercosur market, the South American trading bloc that embraces Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela.
It was the Chinese auto industry’s first production plant in South American. The one proposed for Brazil would be s sizable step forward and up.
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