GM Plans To Build Two New Vehicles In South Korea

General Motors head of international operations, Barry Engle, reportedly told South Korean lawmakers that the automaker has plans to build two new vehicles in the country, Reuters reported on Tuesday.

While the new production allocations are good news in GM Korea’s restructuring talks, it’s not clear if the new vehicle production pends on other factors. GM proposed a $2.2 billion debt to equity swap for GM Korea in exchange for government financial support up to $1 billion. The new model production may be attached to GM’s proposal.

Nor is it clear which production facilities would receive the new vehicles. GM will close the Gunsan plant in May 2018, which builds the Chevrolet Cruze, Holden Astra sedan and Chevrolet Orlando.

GM also launched a voluntary redundancy program for its 16,000 workers across GM Korea. The automaker will lay off 2,000 workers as part of the Gunsan shutdown.

The automaker has also said it prefers to remain in South Korea, but final decisions depend on support from the government. South Korean President Moon Jae-In promised job creation would be a cornerstone to his administration, which may put the government in a tough spot when negotiating with GM.

Former GM Authority staff writer.

Sean Szymkowski

Former GM Authority staff writer.

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  • I'm curious, what's everyone's opinion on GM only doing business in specific parts of the globe? I've seen people toss the phrase "regional automaker" when describing GM's current plans.

    Ex: North America, China, etc

  • GM has manufacturing and assembly plants all over the world. Some are very profitable, such as the plants in Brazil and Mexico, both being "American" as member nations of the American Hemisphere. Canada plants are great (my two past GM vehicles were assembled there) but somewhat problematic with labor issues.

    • Didnt have a good run with a Made in Canada GM product before. But the Canadian automotive industry is pretty much dead as plants moved to Mexico and now back to their home in the U.S.

      I always find it funny when Canadians whine about auto plants moving to Mexico from Canada after they took plants from the U.S. in the first place. If you dont want to compete, get out of the industry. Canadians go nuts if a "Canadian company" moves it operations to the U.S., so nothing can be said about American companies moving their operations back to the U.S. to supoort American jobs and tech know-how. If Canadians dont like that, then why dont they build their own car companies?

    • "American hemisphere"???!

      Hahahaha

      You do realize Hitlery lost (twice failed Presidential candidate), dont you? And the whole globalist open borders thing has been put on the backburner for a very long time, maybe even forever...

      Ask flag-waiving, neo-nationalist Canadians how "American hemispheric" they are...They are clearly "Canadians" just like Mexicans will tell you they are Mexican.

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