The Chinese brand that sells the most cars in Europe decides on Spain

MG will manufacture cars in Spain.

It is official after weeks of rumors in which we had been hearing that the Spanish region was one of the best positioned to produce cars from the Chinese firm of British origin. It is its first major investment outside China in almost a decade and, without a doubt, an endorsement of its European plans.

The advertisement. MG has confirmed it: Galicia is the region chosen for the return to MG manufacturing in Europe. The announcement had been advanced by Alfonso Ruedapresident of the Xunta, this morning but it was not until this afternoon when the MG herself confirmed the news.

For months it has been known that the Xunta de Galicia has been in talks with the Chinese brand to settle on Spanish soil for its new arrival in Europe. And in April, Rueda himself held a series of meetings with representatives of the brand between April 23 and 25 in China, according to The Automotive Tribune.

The project. The company assures that, from the outset, the project has an investment of 200 million euros and that it will create “more than 2,000 jobs in Europe, establishing a strategic center for the next phase of MG’s growth.” That is, the press release provided by the company does not specify how many of these jobs will be in Spain and how many will be created by the increase in cars in the European market.

The company assures that this new plant is scheduled to come into operation in 2028 and that it will have an annual capacity to manufacture up to 120,000 vehicles. At the moment, it has not been confirmed what types of vehicles will be manufactured (pure combustion, hybrid or electric) nor have the models been specified.

For its part, in information collected by The Worldthe Xunta raises the figure to 2,300 jobs, of which 1,000 would be direct, another 1,000 indirect and 300 would be related to the company’s activity in As Pontes (a town near Ferrol). In this location, the company is expected to build a components plant.

Some doubts. For now, what is known is that the company will establish itself in Ferrol and build an auxiliary plant in As Pontes. The choice of Ferrol is determined by its port, which has already served as a gateway for other Chinese manufacturers for sale in Spain or subsequent distribution throughout Europe.

What has not been confirmed, in addition to the type of vehicle used, is what manufacturing method will be carried out. The Chery Group in Barcelona uses the DKD method where the local impact is minimal. The companies (Omoda/Jaecoo/Ebro) have repeated that they will increase the number of operations that will be carried out in Barcelona but, for the moment, the cars arrive semi-assembled in containers and on Spanish soil only the last pieces of the puzzle are being put together.

At the moment, in its information SAIC (owner of MG) does not refer to whether the cars will arrive more or less assembled on Spanish soil. The more processes that need to be carried out in the Spanish plant, the more direct jobs and the more work will be given to auxiliary companies in the area.

“In Europe, for Europe”. That is, according to MG, the maximum of this landing in Galicia. And the company has found a vein in our continent with the sale of cars with all kinds of technologies at very low prices. In Europe it is the Chinese brand that sells the most carsplacing in 2025 a total of 211,014 units in the European Union and 305,717 units if we put the Nordic countries and the United Kingdom into the equation.

These sales are understood because the SAIC Group has found in MG a vein to sell cheaply in Europe. The brand, previously British, is not unknown to the public and both its hybrids and electric ones are cheap compared to traditional European proposals.

In Spain, so far this year, the MG ZS is among the 10 best-selling non-plug-in hybrids and is the sixth best-selling car in the sum of all technologies, according to ANFAC data. Furthermore, the brand is the tenth best-selling company in our country.

Duty. It remains to be known, as we said, what the bet is in terms of specific models but it is clear that the landing of Chinese brands such as BYD in Hungary and Turkey or the Chery Group in Barcelona is directly associated with the implementation of European tariffs on Chinese electric cars.

SAIC, which owns MG, is the company facing the highest tariffs. Manufacturing in Europe may allow them to compete, even more, on price, but the European Union has already made it clear that it will be necessary to make a minimum number of investments to consider that the car is European.

This does not mean that the car is electric. Although cars with combustion engines do not have tariffs, rumors point to greater European shielding of their economy. And producing in Europe for Europe can help, even more, to lower the price of cars with combustion engines, partially alleviating the economic effort that the company has to make with electric cars.

Photo | MG and Counting Stars

In Xataka | Spain has a new brand of Chinese cars and it arrives with an ambitious plan: “Five million units by 2030”