BMW says it will increase spending to 1b euros

BMW Brilliance Automotive celebrated an important day in history when its 250,000th BMW rolled off the production line at the Shenyang facilities on May 19.

"I'm proud of the achievements so far, with our partner Brilliance. The quality of the cars produced in the plant is convincing our customers," commented Frank-Peter Arndt, a board member of the BMW Group.

The company's customer orientation not only takes in product quality, but also good corporate citizenship, Arndt added.

China's first BMW product appeared in July 2003. By early 2007, it had accumulatively produced 50,000 units, and by October 2008, 100,000.

The company benefited from its continued efforts to improve productivity and took only two and a half years to reach the level it is at today.

"What makes us proud is not only quantity but quality", said Olaf Kastner, president and CEO of BMW Brilliance Automotive.

"All the BMW cars built in China have outstanding quality and are on a par with all BMW Group cars produced in other parts of the world", Kastner added.

In 2010, BMW Brilliance won the JD Power quality award for the BMW 5 Series, for the second time.

A new generation of BMW 5 Series, Long Wheelbase, launched in August 2010, soon proved to be a success.

With monthly sales of more than 5,000 units since last October, that new BMW 5 Series has gotten 10 percent more of the market share and has become the most popular premium sedan in China. It is reshaping the competitive landscape of the premium segment here.

The BMW Group recently announced plans to reinforce its strategic commitment to China by increasing spending on a new plant, from the initial 560 million euros ($786 million) to 1 billion euros.

It will speed up work on painting and other shops and infrastructure near the new site to help the new plant reach its designed productive capacity of 200,000 units a year.

The planned productive capacity at the existing Dadong facility is to be increased to about 100,000 vehicles per year.

So, in the medium term, the two BMW Brilliance plants will have a combined production capacity of 300,000 units annually.

The new plant is scheduled to begin operations in early 2012, providing work for more than 4,000 people.

It is expected to be one of the most modern, flexible car plants in the world, BMW Brilliance has said. It will be responsible for new BMW models such as the BMW X1.

The BMW Brilliance is key to the group's China expansion. In 2002, when the German group had not yet started its localized production, they sold about 7,000 cars in China. In 2010, the figure had grown 25-fold - to almost 170,000 cars.

(China Daily 06/01/2011 page42)