[Alpha Biz=(Chicago) Reporter Kim Jisun] Hyundai Motor will sell its Chongqing plant in China, which has been shut down due to sluggish sales.

According to Reuters on the 23rd, Beijing Hyundai, a Chinese subsidiary of Hyundai Motor, put its Chongqing plant up for sale on the Beijing Exchange on the 11th. The starting price of the sale is about 3.68 billion yuan (about 675 billion won). It is known that there is no buyer yet.

The Chongqing plant, which started operation in 2017, is a plant with an annual production capacity of 300,000 units. Hyundai once had up to five factories in the Chinese market. Although it raised its annual production capacity to 2.7 million units, sales plunged in 2017 due to the Chinese government's retaliation against THAAD. Sales fell from 1.79 million units in 2016 to 500,000 units in 2021. In the end, Hyundai Motor sold its Beijing 1 plant in 2021 and stopped operating its Chongqing plant. Nevertheless, sales fell to around 400,000 units last year, and total sales stood at 123,259 units, although sales rebounded in the first half of this year.

Hyundai Motors is also expected to sell its plant in Changzhou in the future.

Hyundai Motor is paying attention to India as a market to replace China. General Motors (GM) recently bought an Indian plant and expanded investment in India, which has emerged as one of the world's top three automobile markets. In May, we decided to invest 200 billion rupees (about 3.2 trillion won) to create an electric vehicle ecosystem and modernize production facilities by establishing a battery pack assembly plant and installing high-speed chargers for 10 years from this year.

 

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