SAIC Motor Corp., China’s biggest carmaker, and General Motors Co. (GM) plan to build and sell low-cost minivans in Indonesia to take advantage of growth in Southeast Asia’s biggest vehicle market.

    SAIC-GM-Wuling Automobile Co. (SGMW), a joint venture between GM China, SAIC Motor and Wuling Motors, is planning to establish a manufacturing facility near Jakarta to build Wuling brand vehicles, the two the automakers said in separate statements yesterday.

    Construction of the facility is planned to begin this year, subject to government approval, the two firms said. They also said the vehicles will be sold primarily in Indonesia, though they could export to other markets in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in the future.

    This isn’t the first GM-SAIC foray outside China. In 2010, as GM was still limping out of bankruptcy, the U.S. automaker agreed to a 50-50 joint venture with SAIC in India, with a goal of expanding into Southeast Asia and other emerging markets.

    Although GM and SAIC have long talked about an expansion of their collaboration beyond tie-ups in China and India, there has been little progress. The GM-SAIC partnership in India also fell off. SAIC nearly reversed that investment in 2012 by cutting its stake to 9 percent after the joint venture struggled.

    SAIC owns a 50 percent stake in SAIC-GM-Wuling, China’s largest minivan maker by sales, and GM owns 44 percent. The rest is owned by Wuling Motors, a relatively unknown producer of microvans in China.

    Wuling began to build mini farm trucks in the 1960s and entered a segment that has come to be known as minicommercial vehicles, or microvans, in the mid-1980s with technological assistance from Japan’s Mitsubishi Motors Corp. and Daihatsu Motor Co. SAIC invested in Wuling in 2001 and GM invested the following year, according to the website of SAIC-GM-Wuling.

    GM and SAIC have helped Wuling improve what were spartan workhorse vehicles used primarily by farmers and small shop owners. They provided technology and made them more reliable and durable. (SD-Agencies)