China automaker plans exports to US market
(AP)
Updated: 2006-01-10 15:56

Li said the car was already in its fifth generation and that further improvements were planned, as well as a name change, before it will be sold in the American market.

"We know what it will take to succeed with this dream and we are prepared to pay that price," he said.

Geely, whose name denotes good luck in Chinese, was founded in 1986 in Zhejiang province, south of Shanghai. It is one of China's few privately held auto companies.

Li led the company's transformation from a refrigerator and bicycle maker into a major automaker with a dozen factories able to turn out 200,000 vehicles and 200,000 engines a year.

Geely's plans to sell vehicles in Malaysia reportedly have been stalled, however, by Malaysian efforts to protect that country's own auto industry.

Company officials have refused comment on reports that Malaysian authorities refused to allow the company to sell vehicles assembled from kits exported from China inside the country, insisting that the cars must instead be exported.