Daimler’s China Venture to Build Engine Plant

Daimler AG and its joint-venture partner, China’s Beiqi Foton Motor Co., said they will build a $166 million plant with the capacity to make as many as 45,000 engines a year for its trucks to serve the fast-growing Chinese market.

The Beijing factory is being built by Beijing Foton Daimler Automotive Co., the joint venture two announced by Daimler and Beiqi Foton in February.

Engine plant construction is scheduled to start in the first half of next year and be completed in 2014, Daimler said Thursday.

The engines will be for the Auman commercial-vehicle brand. The first Auman truck rolled off the assembly line earlier this month at the BFDA plant.

“We are consistently applying our principle of operating as globally as possible on the one hand, and as locally as necessary on the other,” Andreas Renschler, head Daimler’s trucks division, said in a statement.

The engines will be similar to those used by Daimler’s Mercedes-Benz commercial vehicles in Europe and South America, Bloomberg reported.