Ailing at home, GM leads chase for Chinese car buyers
Friday, 15 May 2009
SHANGHAI, May 14 (AFP): Driving a red Chevy, "Prison Break" star Wentworth Miller swerves and smashes through a maze of mirrors as men in black chase him in General Motors' latest Chinese television campaign.
As the feds turn up the heat on the auto giant in Detroit with bankruptcy seeming increasingly inescapable, half a world away GM is playing it cool in China where it broke the latest in series of monthly sales records last month.
"I don't think it makes much difference to us. Obviously we'd prefer to have this restructuring done outside the courts," Kevin Wale, GM China's president and managing director told AFP in a recent interview.
"We operate as independent joint ventures here in China so we would continue pretty much as we are today."
While GM pares back at home, it may add a plant in China to meet its goal of doubling annual sales to two million within five years with products developed for "the most important growth market in the world", Wale said.
As China led the world in auto sales in April, GM China's joint ventures' sales rose 29.9 per cent on year to 151,084 vehicles, driven by demand for Buicks and small Wuling "bread vans" that cost less than 5,000 dollars.
As the feds turn up the heat on the auto giant in Detroit with bankruptcy seeming increasingly inescapable, half a world away GM is playing it cool in China where it broke the latest in series of monthly sales records last month.
"I don't think it makes much difference to us. Obviously we'd prefer to have this restructuring done outside the courts," Kevin Wale, GM China's president and managing director told AFP in a recent interview.
"We operate as independent joint ventures here in China so we would continue pretty much as we are today."
While GM pares back at home, it may add a plant in China to meet its goal of doubling annual sales to two million within five years with products developed for "the most important growth market in the world", Wale said.
As China led the world in auto sales in April, GM China's joint ventures' sales rose 29.9 per cent on year to 151,084 vehicles, driven by demand for Buicks and small Wuling "bread vans" that cost less than 5,000 dollars.