Confusion and denial around Chery’s possible Turkey plant
According to Reuters, the Turkish presidency claimed that Chery planned to invest in a $1bn facility in the region of Samsun by the Black Sea with the capacity to manufacture 200,000 EVs per year. This followed the release of a video of Turkey’s President Erdoğan presenting a ‘certificate of appreciation’ to the president of Chery International, Guibing Zhang, for its investment. The apparent news was reported by Bloomberg earlier on Wednesday.
However, Chery – one of China’s largest automakers – immediately denied the claims, saying: “The report by the foreign news wire is untrue. Chery has no plans to build [a] factory in Turkey. We are seeking partnerships with a third party to expand the business in Turkey.”
Turkey’s ministry of industry was approached by Reuters for clarification. An unnamed official said that it was Chery’s partners who will be making the investment, claiming it will be “a production facility in Samsun for electric and hybrid vehicles and their parts, planned to reach up to $1bn, to be carried out by Chery partners.”
The official added: “In addition to these facilities, a research and development center for mobility technologies will also be established. It is expected that these Chery-brand vehicle production facilities will provide employment for 5000 people.”
It is not clear whether this story has emerged from misunderstanding, miscommunication, or misinformation. It is true that Turkey and Chery have been in talks on a potential investment since last year, when President Erdoğan met Zheng at a business event in Istanbul last September. Theoretically, however, this could also be a diversionary tactic by President Erdoğan’s government, which is facing massive protests against its own policies following the controversial arrest of Istanbul mayor and Erdoğan rival Ekrem İmamoğlu.
If Chery did decide to produce vehicles in Turkey, it would make it the second Chinese EV company to do so – after BYD agreed last year to build a $1bn production plant in western Turkey. Chery currently operates an EV plant in Barcelona in partnership with Spanish manufacturer Ebro-EV Motors, so it is clearly trying to expand its European operations irrespective of what happens in Turkey.
Placing production facilities in Turkey is strategically attractive to Chinese automakers, as they face provisional tariffs on exports to the EU from China while Turkey and the EU have a customs union and lower labour costs than the rest of Europe.
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