At the close of the Municipal People’s Congress and People’s Political Consultative Conference of Yichang City, the launching ceremony of the Yichang Project of Guangzhou Automobile Passenger Vehicle Company and the commencement activity of the “Kick-off Month of Major Projects” of Yichang City in 2018 were held in Xiaoting County-ship District on January 8th, as the start of a new round of projects construction in Yichang.

　　Zhou Ji, Secretary of Yichang Municipal CPC Committee announced the start of projects construction at the ceremony, where Zhang Jiasheng, Deputy Secretary of Yichang Municipal CPC Committee and Mayor of Yichang Municipal Government as well as Feng Xingya, General Manager of Guangzhou Automobile Group (GAG) and Chairman of GAPVC delivered speeches respectively. Wu Song, Deputy General Manager of GAG attended the meeting. Yu Jun, General Manager of GAPVC made an introduction to the Yichang Project. Liang Weibiao, General Manager of Yichang Branch of GAPVC presided over the launching ceremony.

　　Before the opening ceremony, Zhou Ji conducted a survey on the construction of the project. Seeing several types of star models of GAG such as GS3, GA6 and GS4 were on display on the project site; he stopped now and then to inquire the prices and the production processes of all types of cars, and listened to the introduction to the Yichang Projects. Yu Jun said that the leading technology and equipment in the world will be employed to build Yichang factory into a world-class smart benchmarking manufacturer, and a number of star models such as sedan and SUV will be successively produced in the factory after its start of operation next June. On behalf of the Yichang Municipal CPC Committee, the Municipal Government and the people of Yichang City, Zhou Ji expressed his heartfelt thanks to GAG for its strong support for Yichang’s economic and social development, thinking highly of Trumpchi (a representative model of GAG cars), as a self-owned brand that demonstrates the “Matters of Confidence” of China; and he wished a complete success of the cooperation between the two parties.

　　Zhang Jiasheng said in his speech that in recent years, investment promotion and project construction have always been the focus of the governmental tasks, as a result of which a number of major projects have been launched in Yichang successively. The construction projects of GAPVC were carried out as scheduled, which shows GAG’s deep trust and strong support for Yichang and will be of great demonstrative and decisive significance for promoting the development of Yichang’s automobile and parts manufacturing industries and even upgrading of Yichang’s manufacturing industry, and speed up the development of Yichang’s modern economic system. The Municipal CPC Committee and the Municipal Government will always attach great importance to business and provide more quality services for the projects’ settlement in Yichang, with all the relevant departments of all levels sparing no efforts to offer support and coordinate in financing, energy, land, labor and so on; and he closed his speech with the hope of meticulous management and a safe and quality completion of the construction.

　　Feng Xingya appreciated the unique advantages of Yichang City, including its location, comprehensive strength, investment environment and potential market. He believed the commencement of the project marks the substantive construction of the Yichang production base of GAPVC as well as a new phase of the cooperation between GAG and Yichang City; GAG will make unremitting efforts to enhance the development of Yichang’s automobile industry, contributing to the economic and social development of Yichang City as well as the development of China’s automobile industry.

　　It is learned that the approved production capacity of the project, as a central-China production and marketing base of self-owned brand cars invested by GAG and GAPVC, accommodates 200,000 vehicles per year, including mainly A-class and B-class Trumpchi cars and a small part of other models such as sedan and SUV. The project covers an area of about 1km2 with a planned investment sum of 3.531 billion RMB. It will establish production lines of stamping, welding, painting, final assembly, etc., and build itself into a smart benchmarking automobile manufacturing plant subject to the smart manufacturing concept of Industry 4.0. As scheduled, the project will start its construction in January and is expected to reach full production capacity by June next year, which will offer over 3,000 jobs.

　　The reporter was informed that the cooperation between Yichang City and GAG will be conducted to establish an Automobile Components Industrial Park in Yichang with simultaneous planning and investment introduction, aiming at developing Yichang into a city of modern automobile industry with a production value over 100 billion RMB within 3 to 5 years.

　　More officials of Yichang City, Liu Xuefu, Yuan Weidong, Liu Jianxin, Wang Yinghua, together with Jiang Zhengxiong, Secretary General of the Municipal Government, attended the ceremony; Hu Zhili, Secretary of Xiaoting County-ship District, also gave a speech at the ceremony. After the ceremony, the GAG staff visited the Planning Exhibition Hall of Yichang City, for a comprehensive understanding of Yichang’s economic and social development. (Reporter Lei Pengcheng and Correspondent Tang Qiang)