General Motors has begun assembly of the Chevrolet Move passenger van at its facility in the Egypt’s 6th of October City near Cairo. The company intends to push output to 5,000 vehicles a year at full production and has invested $10m in upgrading the facility with new tooling to do so.
As reported in Automotive Logistics News last year, the company is shipping complete knockdown (CKD) kits of the vehicle from its joint venture in China – SAIC-GM-Wuling (SGMW), located in in Qingdao in the northeast of the country. The joint venture signed an agreement with GM Egypt last year (read more here).
The Move, known as the N300 in China, is the first Chinese vehicle to be mass produced outside China and the first to be assembled by GM in the country, although the joint venture already exports the Chevrolet N200 passenger van as a finished vehicle to Egypt along with other African markets. The carmaker has also been exporting CKD shipments of the Wuling Hongguang microvan (known CN100 in China) to India since October last year but these are "not being officially mass produced" according to the company.
“The launch of the Chevrolet Move marks a new milestone in our company's history,” said GM Egypt and North Africa president and managing director Mario Spangenberg. “We are proud of the partnership between GM Egypt and SAIC-GM-Wuling. GM Egypt has been offering high-quality vehicles to our customers for 27 years."
The Chevrolet Move will be sold through Al Mansour Automotive Egypt’s nationwide distribution network.
GM said that SGMW plans to offer more products for countries in North Africa and the Greater Arab Free Trade Area to expand its export volume and enhance global competitiveness.
