Increasing Importance of Development Centers in China and India

GM development centers in the Asia-Pacific region are getting more and more important. The development center at Bagalore of India is to grow from the present 700 employees to more than 900. According to Automotive News Europe Jim Queen, head of the Global Engineering Organisation , said that Bangalore is meant to expand and he considers India as the next region of growth for GM's engineering. GM's Chinese development center PATAC with its design center is now used by GM for the first time in order to renew the design (face-lift, upgrade) of the US Buick cars. Buick cars are GM's most successful vehicles at the Chinese market. GM makes big efforts to promote their Asian development centers that, as the GM top development manager Bob Lutz says, represent the medium-and the long-term future. So it will not be long until they will be powerful competitors for Rüsselsheim and Trollhättan. In recent years numerous jobs have been created by GM in the Asian development centers including GM DAT in South Korea. Experts fear that reducing cost in North America and Europe will be used to finance competition within the same corporation.