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MarketWatch reports that GM is going to business with Uzbekistan's state-owned automaker Uzavtosanoat (pronunciation anyone?). GM VP Eric Stevens said the new joint venture, General Motors Uzbekistan, would boost economic growth in the former Soviet state and provide GM with "a real opportunity" to grow in Central and Eastern Europe. The venture will utilize an existing Uzbek factory and will produce up to 250,000 Chevy Epicas, Captivas and Tacumas. Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch (no relation) reports that all kinds of awful things happen in Uzbekistan. Look for GM to trumpet this fact in forthcoming "corporate responsibility" press releases. !
12 Comments on “GM Announce Joint Project For Make Benefit Glorious Nation Of Uzbekistan...”
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Vera nice!
Here’s an interesting tidbit: BOTH the Chevrolet Epica and Suzuki Verona are available here in Canada. Isn’t it wonderful, having to chose from two rebadges of the same mediocre offering?
Canadians sure have it good, Johnson. No question about that! I wish I could have that choice.
I hear Chevy’s going to rebadge Tatas for Glorious Nation of Uzbekistan.
provide GM with “a real opportunity” to grow in Central and Eastern Europe.
Guess you mean Asia, not Europe. Uzbekistan is only 5,000 miles from Poland…
As for Human rights, I agree, but what about China? Saudi Arabia? Not to mention that the ruler of Uzbekistan would probably answer that all the torture he practices was taught to him by the CIA anyway. Western powers maintain a very large rear base in Dushanbe, Uzb. for supplies and personnel coming in and out of Afghanistan, so they really can’t be bad guys now, can they?
Canadians might have that choice – I can’t remember that last time I saw one though.
AKM: That geographical non sequitor comes courtesy of Mr Stevens. We report, you decide if GM’s top executives are totally ignorant of where exactly they are at any given moment. Then again, he may have been talking about plans to ship vehicles from Uzbekistan to Central/Eastern Europe. My money’s on the ignorance explanation.
Can’t blame you if you haven’t seen an Epica or Verona in Canada. They’re about as rare as a Ferrari Enzo, because nobody buys these mediocre Daewoos, rebadged as Chevys, and once more rebadged as Suzukis.
Slightly off-topic, years ago a distant acquaintance got into an accident with a Daewoo Lanos. He was driving roughly 30 mph, and during a tight turn the car simply flipped over (on a dry road). The car ended up being a total write-off. True story.
The Chev Epica is no longer available in Canada as a New Car, maybe one can find one in the Used market. I have a friend who purchased one, as it was sold as a $7000.00 discount at the time, its just too bad that if this vehicle had an accident, parts would be hard to find here in Canada. GM didnt intend to keep this Car around too long and that’s why its now discontinued.
@Johnson
He was driving roughly 30 mph, and during a tight turn the car simply flipped over (on a dry road). The car ended up being a total write-off. True story.
You’re complaining? Most car companies would pay millions of dollars for that type of lateral grip….the thing just held too tight to the road surface, IMHO.
AKM: That geographical non sequitor comes courtesy of Mr Stevens. We report, you decide if GM’s top executives are totally ignorant of where exactly they are at any given moment. Then again, he may have been talking about plans to ship vehicles from Uzbekistan to Central/Eastern Europe. My money’s on the ignorance explanation.
Wow!
My bad for not reading correctly, Edward.
As to GM, that reminds me of the “You really don’t know where China is, do you?” ad. That’s pretty sad.
It’s the equivalent of setting a plant in Brazil to serve the U.S. market. Impressive cluelessness.
You are blasting GM (again) and taking stock in some splinter group thingie named Human Rights Watch? Seriously?
This plant was a Daewoo plant which was essentially left to twist in the wind when GM basically legally stole Daewoo a few years back for pennies on the dollar, cherry picking only some of the best South Korean plants, using the other South Korean plants as contract plants (later, bought up), and buying the Vietnamese plant.
Plants in Romania, Russia, Uzbekastan, Poland, etc. were essentially told go to h e double sticks and were banned from exporting out of their own countries, etc., while GM imported updated Chevrolet branded Daewoos into those same countries to compete against the local Daewoo companies. The 1999 Asian financial crisis caused this meltdown for Daewoo. Kind of like the 2008 US financial crisis will affect us, if things go completely sour.
Yes, it is my understanding that GM plans to use this plant to export cars into other former Comecon (ex-soviet bloc) nations.
Ford was trying to buy up the Romanian Daewoo plant (RoDae) to get some super-cheap labor and a fairly new, and underutilized, plant. I have not heard much about that lately, but do understand that Romania is not a very safe place to try to do biz, as the US importer planning on bringing in SUVs from another plant claims to have been poisoned while in Romania, so he ran, didn’t walk, away from that deal.
Apparently, though, Vietnam labor costs are about 1/6th of China’s (so we can expect to see stuff from Vietnam sold in Wal-Mart stores any day now, as a replacement for Chinese stuff just as Chinese stuff replaced Mexican made stuff, just as Mexican made stuff replaced Taiwanese made stuff, which replaced Japanese stuff, which replaced American stuff). Romania’s labor costs are the apparently nearly as low as Vietnam, so one can only imagine what the labor costs are in Uzbekastan. Probably extremely low.
Perhaps GM will survive, but with little or no North American production. Unlike Toyota and Honda, Hyundai and Kia, Nissan, BMW and Mercedes, GM seems willing and happy to spend money on new plants and expansion elsewhere in the world while pulling jobs and investments out of the US and Canada.