Jaguar Land Rover inaugurates its first overseas manufacturing facility

Jaguar Land Rover has announced the opening of its inaugural overseas manufacturing facility in China. The award-winning Range Rover Evoque will be the first model to be built under the first Chinese-British automotive joint venture, with Chery Automobile Company Ltd.

The plant inauguration of Chery Jaguar Land Rover Automotive Company follows the two-year construction of a factory, which is almost 400,000 square metres. Located in the Changshu Economic Development Zone north of Shanghai, the factory is part of a RMB10.9 billion (S$2.26 billion) joint venture investment plan.

Dr. Ralf Speth, Chief Executive Officer of Jaguar Land Rover, and Mr. Yin Tongyao, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Chery Automobile Company, welcomed the formal opening of the facility that aims to be the most advanced and efficient car factory in China.

In the last fiscal year, Jaguar Land Rover sold more than 100,000 vehicles in China, making it Jaguar Land Rover's single largest market. By 2016, the facility is expected to be building three Jaguar Land Rover models with total production capacity of 130,000 units per annum.

Those vehicles will be manufactured in highly automated press shops - including cutting-edge aluminium and steel technologies - along with a steel body shop comprising 306 robots, an energy-efficient paint shop and an ergonomically friendly final assembly line. A new aluminium body shop, the first in China, is already under construction, at the Changshu facility, to support the introduction of new Jaguar products.

Once fully operational, output from the new state-of-the-art facility will include new derivatives and models specially designed for the Chinese market.