Ford breaks ground on $300 million China plant

[boomerbust]

Source: reuters

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Ford Motor and its partly-owned Jiangling Motors Corp broke ground on Sunday on a $300 million vehicle plant in central China as the partners speed expansion in the world's largest auto market.

The facility, capable of producing up to 300,000 units annually, will start operation at the end of 2012, the U.S. automaker said in a statement.

Jiangling, 30 percent controlled by Ford, currently operates two plants, with combined capacity of 210,000 units, making JMC and Ford's Transit models.

Models carrying Ford and JMC nameplates will be made at the new facility, it said.

(Reporting by Fang Yan and Jacqueline Wong; Editing by Ken Wills)



Read more: http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/news/article.aspx?Feed=OBR&Date=20100718&ID=11717608&Symbol=F

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Thats a shame

[dmallind]

1. The options would be

A) Make the cars for the Chinese market overseas from that market with more expensive labor and incur shipping cosrts and import duties too
B) Ignore a market with about 22% of the world's population and a growing middle class affluent enough to buy cars larger than the population of most countries, and abandon this market to your competitors
C) Do this


What would your choice be?

[kirby]

8. A fallacy...

With China's history of corporate espionage and intellectual property theft, I think companies are in for a rude awakening when their
products are duplicated and they are thrown out of the country/nationalized in the future. China knows that companies will sell their grandma to get a piece of that 22% and they are using that to their advantage.

[dmallind]

9. So, if we grant everything you've said, why does that make my post a fallacy again?

Does IP risk give us an option D and if so what is it?

[kirby]

11. No...

The fallacy is not your options, but the corporate thinking that they should do anything possible to get their foot in the door over in China and that in the future it will pay off.

[dmallind]

14. Which in other words means your choice would be option B, no? NT

[MineralMan]

2. Build 'em where they buy 'em. That's what this sounds like.

If that's the case, it's a good move.

[burnsei sensei]

3. The Chinese . . . oh yes, they provide their workers

health insurance without conditions, right?

[Beams1969]

6. At a Honda plant in China recently there were 13 attempted suicides

over conditions. I can't remember how many were "successful". They are making about $130/month. As long as they keep devaluing their currency and don't have any solid domestic capital investment, I predict their economy will collapse withing 5-10 years.

[iamthebandfanman]

10. this happens all the time in every industry in china

..
i remember just a few years ago a computer part maker i bought from had a few suicides... havent purchased from them since.

[n2doc]

4. I'm fine with this as long as they don't import the cars here

Sell them to China, fine.

Put a 50% tariff on imports, just to make sure.

[jody]

5. Factories located where consumers are help the local economy regardless of who owns the plant. n/t

[Bitwit1234]

7. You forgot to add

most of the stuff the Chinese are palming off on the market now is JUNK. So even if the big corporations want to give us this JUNK we shouldn't buy it. Look at the toothpaste, the pet food, the drywall and all the stuff they make that is just knock offs of good stuff made her. Electronics for example and handbags etc.

[izquierdista]

13. Got to do something with those Pinto gas tanks

Ford thought they would never get a chance to clean out that warehouse....

[pampango]

16. Like the Japanese in the 60's, there's money to be made in JUNK. Doesn't mean the Chinese can't make

quality stuff. They have their own space program and aerospace industry.

When I was a kid, "made in Japan" meant cheap junk that broke quickly, kind of like "made in China" today. Look at the Japanese now. They sure are not known for "cheap junk" anymore. They figured out that there was more money to be made (and higher wages to be paid if their society distributes income more equitably than ours does-which isn't saying much) in producing higher quality, more expensive stuff than trying to hold onto the market for low quality, cheap stuff (junk) which, by definition, can't pay high wages.

[Romulox]

17. Saw on TV recently that Messrs. Harley & Davidson sold tooling, plans to the Japanese

during a low point in the company's history.

Puts the company's present day position in a different context.

[jimmil]

12. Ford has been in China

For several years now. There was a production plant built in the 2005 time frame modeled off the one in India. Also, just as an FYI, Aston Martin has the blocks to all their cars built and machined there.

[Xenotime]

15. This is what happens when you don't have government control over companies..

They send their jobs overseas.

[JCMach1]

19. These cars are for the Asian market...

China car ownership is exploding.

[naaman fletcher]

18. What is everyone's problem?

When foreign companies open factories here, everyone acts like our country is being taken over. Yet, when our companies over factories overseas, they are idiots and hurting our country.

Which is it?