Chinese car manufacturer Great Wall Motor Company Ltd (GWM) inked a deal with Vietnam’s Thanh An Group JSC in mid-September to assemble cars in Vietnam by the end of 2025. 

GWM, headquartered in Hebei, China, mainly produces sport utility vehicles and pick-up trucks.

As per the agreement, the two firms will cooperate to cover the assembly of completely knocked-down GWM models in the Southeast Asian country, according to Car News China.

These cars are set to roll off the assembly line in Vietnam by the end of 2025. But as for how many they will be making each year, that is still under wraps

GWM officially entered Vietnam in August 2023 after it signed a deal with Thanh An Group to distribute Haval cars in early 2023. 

The carmaker plans to introduce its Tank 300 and Tank 500 autos to Vietnam.

The automaker manufactured some car models similar to the Mazda and Toyota, and then quickly became one of China’s leading firms. 

Though GWM previously tried to expand its reach to the world, especially in the European market, it gained lower-than-expected success. Therefore, the carmaker decided to tap the Southeast Asian region.

In January this year, GWM signed an assembly agreement with Malaysian-listed EP Manufacturing Berhad Group, the first in the ASEAN region. 

GWM has locations in Thailand, Malaysia, Laos, Brunei, and Vietnam.

The Chinese carmaker is planning to build another knocked-down assembly factory in Indonesia.

Vietnam has the fourth-largest car market in Southeast Asia. Last year, members of the Vietnam Automobile Manufacturers' Association sold 301,989 cars.

Last year, GWM vended over 1.2 million cars, up 15.3 percent year on year, with more than 310,000 units exported to markets outside China.

Between January and August this year, GWM sold 280,140 autos in the global market, a 54.2-percent year-on-year hike, representing 37.6 percent of the firm’s total sales.

Thanh An Group is a distributor of some South Korean car brands. In 2023, it became the first distributor of the Haval, a car brand owned by GWM, in Vietnam.

In early 2024, the group announced its plan to open an additional 12 showrooms to sell Haval cars in Vietnam.

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