Great Wall Motor (GWM), a Chinese automaker that has been interested in the Indian market since 2020, is now one of the biggest losers because New Delhi is paying more attention to investments with ties to Beijing.
China’s Great Wall Motor gives up on its $1 billion plan for India and fires all of its workers.
After failing to gain regulatory permits, China’s Great Wall Motor(GWM) abandoned plans to spend $1 billion in India and fired every employee at its business.
Since 2020, the Chinese car company has been thinking about getting into the Indian market. But New Delhi is one of the biggest losers because it is paying more attention to projects that Beijing is involved in.
Without specifically addressing the departure, Great Wall stated in a statement that it “would like to thank all the members of the Indian team for their efforts” and promised to keep watching the Indian market and looking for possibilities.
The Great Wall’s main market
During the nation’s biannual car exhibition in January 2020, Great Wall made a big deal out of their entrance plan for India.
The Indian market was crucial to the Chinese SUV manufacturer’s worldwide development aspirations, and it had planned to build the largest production outside of China there.
During the period COVID-19 epidemic, New Delhi increased its monitoring of investments from countries with which it shares a land border. This was done several months after Great Motor started hiring people there.
Later that year, a border dispute between China and India made the crackdown worse. Since then, billions of dollars’ worth of investments have been stopped from going into several industries, such as the tech and auto industries.
A dozen staff were let go
The people, who didn’t want to be named, said that Great Wall fired about a dozen employees at its Indian operation on Friday because it couldn’t get government approval for foreign direct investment to buy a former General Motors (GM) plant in the country.
Great Wall and GM cancelled the factory agreement earlier on Friday, putting an end to a two-year project. Outside of regular business hours, a spokeswoman for the Indian government could not be immediately reached for comment.
Two of the people said that the fired employees worked for the company in areas like finance, strategy, and marketing. They will get three months’ severance pay.
Since last year, the Great Wall has had less patience. In August, it moved some of its employees and gave some of the $1 billion it planned to invest in India to Brazil.
In Bengaluru, which is in southern India, the business’s research and development centres are open and running normally.
It’s interesting to note that, together with Thailand and Brazil, India was considered a crucial frontier in Great Wall Motor’s global growth. The Indian idea has stalled while activities have begun in Southeast Asia and Latin American nations.
The staff employed locally has practically halved over time, with senior executives in the crucial roles of business development, sales and marketing, and strategy moving on to other automotive businesses as the key executives directing India’s ambitions were redirected to global markets.
General Motors and GMW agreed to a term sheet renewal twice, but the contract was never approved by the government. It has decided to give up on its plans for India and instead focus on Brazil, where it has just spent $2 billion and bought a new factory.
A spokesperson for GWM said that the company will continue to watch and study the Indian market and “look for possibilities” with the goal of giving Indian customers new experiences with creative goods in the future.
