Chery plans to manufacture vehicles in knockdown in Malaysia to be exported to different markets in South and Southeast Asia. The announcement was made by Chery Vice President Zhou Biren after he signed a strategic partnership deal with Bhelloton World Federation at the beginning of this week. Last year, Paul Ng, head of Chery Holding’s Malaysian branch, said that Chery plans to invest 250 million ringgit ($81.22m) to set up a vehicle production site in Malaysia and that the automaker will focus on building right-hand drive vehicles both for domestic use and for exports to neighbouring markets such as Pakistan, Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia and Thailand.
Chery entered Malaysia in 2005 and since then it has introduced a variety of models such as the Eastar MPV, Tiggo SUV and the QQ compact car. Three years later the automaker signed a deal with local distributor Alado to set up a JV partnership. Currently, Chery has more than 50 direct sales outlets and allied dealers in Malaysia. Three months ago Chery Automobile hired Porsche Designer Hakan Saracoglu to oversee its design center located in Shanghai, part of its plan to improve its styling. Chery is one of many Chinese automakers which chose to hire foreign designers in order to increase their brand image and cut the loss in market share to foreign automakers such as GM and VW.
