China's Geely begins with imported and evaluates factory

After Chery and JAC Motors, both already under construction factories in the country, the Geely is the newest Chinese brand to land in Brazil with local production plans.
The kickoff of the investee in the Brazilian market was given yesterday with the official inauguration of the headquarters of the brand, installed in Itu, São Paulo.
From March, Geely cars-imported-initially begin to be sold on the network of dealers, which begins with 15 shops and reaches 25 points of sale until December. The goal is to sell 3.5 thousand units two models this year, evolving for 20 thousand cars in 2015, or all the capacity of its factory in Uruguay, where the vehicles will be assembled.
But the Group's plans are more ambitious and include investments in the construction of a factory in the country, which has become a must for automakers wishing to have high scale in the Brazilian market, given the restrictions on imports of new automotive policy. Preliminary talks have already begun with Geely, at least five States. The direction of the company hopes to make a decision on this project until the end of the year.
According to Lin Zhang, the automaker's Director responsible for international operations, including factories outside China, the project has already been discussed with the Governments of Paraná, Santa Catarina, Minas Gerais and Bahia, and Sao Paulo, which has a preference of businessman Jose Luiz Gandini, representative of the brand in the Brazilian market and which also aims to participate in 40% of the investment on the Assembly line.
At the time, Zhang says still studying which models will assemble in Brazil for, from there, to define what is the factory size and investment to be held. Besides SUVs, the company evaluates start production with compact cars and sedans, threads that will be your starting point here.
But Zhang confirmed that the Brazilian factory can also, in a second stage, producing Swedish brand Volvo cars, controlled by the Chinese group for over three years. Since September, the two automakers develop shared production platforms in a research and Development Center in Gothenburg, Sweden.
"We are considering only the Geely, but there is a determination that the Volvo can't join [the cars that will be produced in Brazil] later. It makes sense that the factory is shared, "said Zhang to a group of journalists who accompanied last ceremony that marks the beginning of the operations of Geely in the Brazilian market.
Sales begin in March with a medium sedan, EC7. Starting in June, the Geely enters the market with the country's most popular hatchback GC2.
As the two cars will be assembled in Uruguay, inside, so the Mercosur free trade agreement, the automaker is free of surcharge of 30 percentage points in the tax on industrialized products (IPI) charged for more than two years to imported vehicles.
In addition to dealerships in cities like Sao Paulo, Brasilia, Rio de Janeiro and Belo Horizonte, where are the biggest markets of Brazil, the Geely will have stores in the State of São Paulo, Ribeirão Preto and São José do Rio Preto, and in Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, his only ever named in the Northeast.
The brand has not yet set prices for the cars, but the rookie EC7 will be in a range of r $ 50 thousand, while the GC2 will cost around $ 30,000.