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[size=75:22j5srnt]Sofia echo Tue, Nov 24 2009

Chinese car maker Great Wall to start production in Bulgaria by end-2010

Chinese car manufacturer Great Wall is to commence production of off-road vehicles in the northern Bulgarian town of Lovech by the end of 2010, the Chinese Xinhua reported, cited by Investor.bg

Great Wall Motor signed an agreement with Litex Motors worth 80 million euro on November 15 2009 and the deal was hailed as "
Bulgaria's chance to prove that the current business climate in the country is sound and stable"
, Investor said.

The Chinese car maker will pay $4 million for its stake in the company that is envisioned to manufacture sport utility vehicles that would be sold at a price of less than $15 000.

As China’s first private automobile enterprise listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, the company has more than 30 subsidiaries and more than 22 000 people on its payroll. Great Wall Motor now manufactures sedans and sports utility vehicles and pickups, with an annual capacity of 400 000 complete vehicles.

The company has anticipated on exporting production in Eastern Europe since 2006, and the Litex Motors deal signed in November 2009 can be seen a cornerstone in future expansion in southern Europe. The total output of its Bulgarian joint venture remains as yet undisclosed.

Previously British car manufacturer Rover was contemplating on shifting production of their Maestro and Montego ranges to Varna, an investment which at the time was estimated at $20 million, with an annual output of 10 000 vehicles. Subsequently, Rover Group which owned 51 per cent of the shares and the Bulgarian Daru Group with 49 per cent commenced operation in 1995.

The vehicles manufactured in Bulgaria, however, were perceived to be poorly marketed and overpriced, and the Rover Maestro scheme in Bulgaria eventually collapsed on April 4 1996 with only 2200 vehicles produced.

This all sounds very promising for Bulgaria

[size=55:csqkvk66]novinite

China's Great Wall Fires Up the Engine in Bulgaria in Oct

Cars produced by China's Great Wall will hit the Bulgarian market in October this year through a network of twelve representative show rooms across the country.

First the dealers will sell cars under the Great Wall badge, which have been manufactured in China, but at a later stage those assembled in Bulgaria will be on offer as well.

Voleex C10 sedan, Hover H5 SUV and Steed pick-up are the three different vehicle models, which Chinese car maker Great Wall Motor Co and Bulgarian company Litex Motors will produce in the town of Lovech, Northern Bulgaria, at very competitive prices.

Production is expected to commence by the end of the year amid expectations for a furore not least because of the cars' low prices.

Voleex C10, a small super-mini-class hatchback, will be tagged at BGN 15 990, VAT included, making it the cheapest car not only in Bulgaria, but across the whole of Europe.

The other two models of the Chinese-Bulgarian joint venture will also break price records for a large SUV and pick-up. Prices for the Great Wall Hover will start from BGN 28,699 and for Steed, from BGN 24 499, VAT included.

The vehicles to be manufactured by Great Wall Motors and Litex Motors in Bulgaria's Lovech will be shown at the autumn fair in the city of Plovdiv, which will open on September 26.

Great Wall Motor Company, one of China's biggest automotive manufacturers, signed a joint venture (JV) deal with Bulgarian diversified holding company Litex Commerce in the presence of Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping and Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov at the end of 2009.

The plant will have an annual production capacity of 50,000 units and assemble four different models – a sports utility vehicle (SUV), a pick-up and two passenger car models, which are expected to be sold in European Union countries.

The total initial investment is around EUR 80 M, potentially reaching EUR 300 M if the project is successful. The cars are expected to be sold under the Great Wall badge, boosting the firm's output from around 400,000 at present.

The project is considered to be nothing short of a coup for Bulgaria, which does not currently produce any passenger vehicles, though it does have a modest but successful automotive components industry.

The plant will surely be positioned squarely towards export market and by the time production commences, the auto-mobile market is expected to be experiencing a post-slump upswing.

This may also be the last chance for the revival of the local auto-mobile industry after in mid 1990s Rover set up a joint venture with the Bulgarian Daru Group in Varna, which failed because of a weak market strategy, high prices, and a stronger competitor in the face of Skoda.

[size=55:9tygpah3]novinite

Bulgaria Says Back on Global Car Production Map



Sixteen years after Bulgaria's last failed attempt to revive its auto mobile industry, the first car under the Great Wall badge assembled here has been rolled out at a factory near the town of Lovech, Northern Bulgaria.

Cars produced by China's Great Wall already hit the Bulgarian market in October this year through a network of twelve representative show rooms across the country.

Voleex C10 sedan, Hover H5 SUV and Steed pick-up are the three different vehicle models, which Chinese car maker Great Wall Motor Co and Bulgarian company Litex Motors will produce in the town of Lovech, Northern Bulgaria, at very competitive prices.

Production is expected to commence at the beginning of next year amid expectations for a furore not least because of the cars' low prices.

Great Wall Motor Company, one of China's biggest automotive manufacturers, signed a joint venture (JV) deal with Bulgarian diversified holding company Litex Commerce in the presence of Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping and Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov at the end of 2009.

The plant will have an annual production capacity of 50,000 units and assemble four different models – a sports utility vehicle (SUV), a pick-up and two passenger car models, which are expected to be sold in European Union countries.

The total initial investment is around EUR 97 M, potentially reaching EUR 300 M if the project is successful. The Chinese company has secured 10% of the money, the remainder was forked out by Litex Motors, owned by petrol businessman and owner of Litex football club Grisha Ganchev.

The cars are expected to be sold under the Great Wall badge, boosting the firm's output from around 400,000 at present.

The project is considered to be nothing short of a coup for Bulgaria, which does not currently produce any passenger vehicles, though it does have a modest but successful automotive components industry.

The plant will surely be positioned squarely towards export market and by the time production commences, the auto mobile market is expected to be experiencing a post-slump upswing.

This may also be the last chance for the revival of the local auto mobile industry after in mid 1990s Rover set up a joint venture with the Bulgarian Daru Group in Varna, which failed because of a weak market strategy, high prices, and a stronger competitor in the face of Skoda.



Bulgaria's Litex, Great Wall Car Factory to Sell 2 000 Vehicles in 2012

Bulgaria's brand-new car factory – a joint project of the Bulgarian company Litex Motors and the Chinese Great Wall Motor Co – aims at selling 2 000 vehicles in 2012, the company announced.

On November 14, Litex Motors and Great Wall Motors already unveiled their first vehicle assembled in the plant near the northern Bulgarian city of Lovech, 16 years after Bulgaria's last failed attempt at car manufacturing.

The Litex Motors factory will formally be inaugurated at the beginning of 2012, featuring the latest top-notch equipment for car manufacturing, the company said.

During its assembly process each vehicle will go through seven control points on assembly line;
and each vehicle model will tested on a track with 30 different surfaces near the plant.

Litex Motors currently employs over 120 people, the average age of its engineers being 25, and the average age of the assembly line operators – 19, with all employees going through special training.

The company team also features manages with long-time experience at leading world car manufacturing plants.

Litex and Great Wall plant to expand their annual output to 50 000 cars, with the total employment figure at the Lovech plant planned to reach 2 000 people.

After the formal opening of the factory, Litex and Great Wall are to start their production for export markets, the company said.

Voleex C10 sedan, Hover H5 SUV and Steed pickup are the three different vehicle models, which Chinese car maker Great Wall Motor Co and Bulgarian company Litex Motors will produce in Lovech, Northern Bulgaria, at very competitive prices.

To date, the Litex Motors plant has produced over 10 vehicles of the Volex and Steed brands as part of its testing period.

"
Because of the large consumer interest the dealerships of Great Wall working with 13 offices around Bulgaria are offering imported vehicles since the number of requests [for the cars to be produced at Lovech] has reached over 200 since September,"
Litex Motors said.

The company points out that its vehicles have "
top equipment, top prized, 5-year warranty, and tax credit."


For its petrol-engine vehicles, the company also offers modifications for switching to methane that preserve the power of the engine but reduce fuel costs by 70%.

In that respect, Litex Motors is to partner with a leading LPG Systems producer – Dutch company Vialle.

Great Wall Motor Company, one of China's biggest automotive manufacturers, signed a joint venture (JV) deal with Bulgarian diversified holding company Litex Commerce in the presence of Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping and Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov at the end of 2009.

[size=55:1o691pzk]novinite

Great Wall Motor to Inaugurate Bulgaria Plant on February 21



Chinese auto-maker Great Wall Motor will inaugurate its first plant in Bulgaria and Europe on February 21, it has been announced.

The brand new car factory is a a joint project with Bulgarian company Litex Motors that aims at selling 2 000 vehicles in 2012.

On November 14 2011, Litex Motors and Great Wall Motors unveiled their first vehicle assembled in the plant near the northern Bulgarian city of Lovech, 16 years after Bulgaria's last failed attempt at car manufacturing.

Litex and Great Wall plant to expand their annual output to 50 000 cars, with the total employment figure at the Lovech plant planned to reach 2 000 people.

After the formal opening of the factory, Litex and Great Wall are to start their production for export markets.

Great Wall Motor has already launched its official advertising campaign in Bulgaria for the three models to be built in the EU-member country: the Hover H5 SUV, the Steed 5 pick-up and the Voleex C10 city car.

According to Renault-Nissan's Bulgaria CEO Bernard Neuviale, Great Wall cars will not directly threaten the sales of Renault's Romania-made Dacia. "
Great Wall will first have to prove many things, in the first place that it can produce here a car of good quality and then we'll see. Their prices are also not so good,"
Neuviale said, as cited by inautonews.com.

The Voleex C10 is priced from BGN 16,000 (EUR 8,200), with the Steed 5 pick-up and the Hover H5 SUV at BGN 24,500 and BGN 28,700 respectively.

[size=55:1zh7b5z3]novinite

Great Wall Bulgarian Partner's Son Permanently behind Bars

The son of well-known Bulgarian businessman Grisha Ganchev, Danail, and four other people, detained during the special police operation codenamed "
Sugar,"
are to remain permanently behind bars.

The ruling was issued on Wednesday by the specialized court of appeals, which thus upheld an earlier decision by the Special Tribunal, widely known as the anti-mafia Court.

The only defendant to be placed on house arrest is Kameliya Mircheva, a member of the "
Litex Commerce"
Supervisory Board on grounds of poor health condition and being the single mother of a teenager.

Danail Ganchev, Milko Talev, Ivaylo Talev, Todor Simeonov, Milko Dimitrov and Kameliya Mircheva are charged with large-scale tax evasion and participation in organized crime.

Grisha Ganchev is the owner of the Litex FC and the Litex company, based in the northern Bulgarian city of Lovech. As of the end of 2011, Ganchev's joint venture with the Chinese company Great Wall Motors, Litex Motors, started the production of Chinese cars for the EU market in the Litex Motors factory near Bulgaria's Lovech, in the village of Bahovitsa.

Earlier this month officers of the Bulgarian Unit for Combating Organized Crime GDBOP and the National Revenue Agency busted what is said to be organized crime group that incurred losses worth hundreds of millions of levs to the state budget, according to the Interior Ministry.

The special operation resulted in six arrests, including Ganchev's son.

Initial reports state that the VAT fraud scheme was invented by the CEO of a commercial company selling large quantities of sugar to retailers.

The sugar is provided from a joint venture in charge of the Bulgarian sugar production plants in Burgas and Devnya.

The Interior Ministry reported in an official media statement that the VAT fraudsters had also been planning to import a test quantity of 25 metric tons of sugar containing toxic elements from the region of Chernobyl in Ukraine, the home town of the busted nuclear power plant.

In the event that it could be sold successfully in Bulgaria, the group planned to set up permanent imports of toxic sugar.

If the sugar proved to be of poor quality it would be used for the production of natural juice, which is also one of Ganchev's businesses.

Ganchev has dismissed as speculations claims of the Interior concerning the involvement of people from the company in VAT draining schemes.

Ganchev is one of the biggest sugar importers in the country and owns four out of a total of six sugar refineries in Bulgaria.

The plants are located in Ruse, Sofia, Burgas and Dolna Mitropolia.