Ford China Plant: Automaker Will Build $490 Million Facility

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Source: The Huffington Post

SHANGHAI (AP) -- Ford Motor Co. said Friday it plans to spend $490 million on building a third assembly plant in China, ramping up production to meet surging demand in this fast-growing market as the U.S. automaker expands in Asia.

The factory, to be built in the central Chinese city of Chongqing, will make the next-generation Focus compact car, which Ford plans to sell globally.

The announcement from Chongqing came the day after the Dearborn, Michigan-based automaker unveiled a made-in-India compact car -- part of a plan to boost sales in Asia, a region the U.S. automaker has hardly dented but is counting on to drive growth.

"Today's announcement reinforces our commitment to the further expansion of our China operations to meet the continued rise in demand from Chinese consumers for world-class Ford products and services," Ford chief executive Alan Mulally said in a statement.

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/25/ford-china-plant-automake_n_299629.html

[Yes We Did]

1. Buy American. Yeah... n/t

[treestar]

2. But who is designing and marketing this car and running the business?

These jobs might be American. This would be an American company selling to the Chinese, improving our trade position. Why is it so important that the factory be here too? The higher level jobs are still here.

[Xithras]

11. No they're not.

Designs for the asian markets are put together in their Bangalore Research & Development center and their Australian studio. The Figo, Fords new compact sedan for the Asian market, which they're basing future development on, was designed in India. Currently, Asian marketing and promotion is handled out of Australia and India, though Ford will probably spin off a new China subsidiary once the new plant is complete.

The benefit is for Ford stockholders, and few others.

[bfealk]

3. China requires products sold in China to be built in China

Unlike the Unites States, they actually want the jobs to be for Chinese workers, although I'm sure the wages paid to the Chinese workers will be substandard wages.

[pampango]

7. Are you exaggerating for effect? They have higher tariffs, but imported goods are sold in China.

As a developing country, they are allowed to have higher tariffs than the developed countries. Given their economic development in the last 20 years, those tariffs should be renegotiated, but it is not true that "China requires products sold in China to be built in China".

[brentspeak]

8. Are you lying for corporations?

It is true that many U.S. corporations who want to sell their goods within China must first be located inside China, in order to employ Chinese workers.

There is also nothing written in stone which says that China is "allowed" to have higher tariffs than the developed countries; that's simply an opinion which you pulled out of your a$$.

[xchrom]

4. 'Ford Motor Co. said Friday it plans to spend $490 million on building a third assembly plant '

be nice to hear that kind of money being spent on SOME kind of a plant here.

with out a committment to protecting american economic diversity -- we will fail.

[OhioChick]

5. "with out a committment to protecting american economic diversity -- we will fail."

That we will.

[xchrom]

6. seems so simple, doesn't it? nt

[st8grad93]

9. $11.8 Trillion+ in debt with no end in sight ...

will sink us a lot faster.

In 10 years the single largest budget line item will be interest on the debt.

Even if all eligible American were employed, this would not change without a change in spending habits by Washington.

[alfredo]

12. Less on war, more on developing the human infrastructure at home. Invest

in us, not the war machine. It was the Soviets that put everything into their war machine, allowed their infrastructure to crumble, then found too late that they could not compete.

I was a cold warrior working for an "information gathering agency" and I got a heads up on the collapse of the Soviet empire back in the sixties. It played out nearly as we expected except for an ego maniac that wanted the Soviet Union to fall on his watch. His ego caused untold suffering in Russia by not allowing time for the system to adapt to a new reality. Instead of allowing them to sort things out on their own, a Milton Friedman style of system was imposed by some quislings in Russia. Chaos ensued, the Mafia took control of much of the economy, and people starved.

[st8grad93]

13. Shifting spending is not the answer ...

We must cut the spending at the federal level. If we don't do that, we can add all the factory jobs we want and we will still be in deep deep trouble.

[alfredo]

15. You can spend on hookers and beer, or you can spend to fix the leaky roof.

If you spend on projects that return value for the dollar, then spending is good. Every dollar spent on the arts returns something like eight dollars. How much return on the dollar do we get from a bomb?

Cut spending from projects that do not give a return on the investment. The tax cut for billionaires and subsidies to oil companies and drug companies did nothing for us.

[FarCenter]

10. I wonder if any of the machine tools and factory automation equipment come from the US

Or whether it is all from Germany and Japan?

[Vinca]

14. If Ford cars are not made in America, Americans cannot afford Ford cars.

It's not rocket science.