German carmaker Volkswagen's Chinese joint venture Shanghai Volkswagen is planning to build a new assembly plant in the North Western part of the country.
The new facility in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region will be built with an investment of about CNY2bn ($290m) and is expected to begin operations next year with a capacity of manufacturing about 50,000 small sedans per year.
Volkswagen said that the Urumqi plant will take advantage in the northwest China and Central Asia markets.
German carmaker is also planning to unveil its first plug-in hybrid-electric vehicle in China in 2015, following which, its Chinese JV's, FAW and SAIC, will produce their own EVs in 2014 and are expected to reach the production rate to 100,000 by 2018.
The plant in Urumqi plant will be Volkswagen's fifth car factory in China with an four plants the company planning to to set up in the country while Volkswagen is already having six component facilities in the country.
The company has sold about 2.3 million vehicles in China the previous year, representing more than quarter of its vehicles sold in total.
