General Motors Corp. has formed a fifty-fifty joint venture with state-owned automaker FAW Group Corp. to manufacture light-duty trucks and vans in China.

The two companies are making a combined investment of 2 billion Yuan for the new company.

The joint venture will be based in the northeastern Chinese city of Changchun of Jilin Province.

Kevin Wale, President and MD at GM China informed that by the end of year 2010, the new venture will be capable of producing around 100,000 vehicles per year. The new plant will boost joint venture's annual capacity to around 200,000 trucks.

Kevin Wale further added, "The truck segment is very important. It's growing rapidly like the rest of China."

Stimulus efforts by the Chinese Government boosted GM's China sales by 42.8 per cent to 959,035 units during the first 7-month period of 2009 as compared with the same period last year.

China is one of the few major markets in the world which have managed to grow despite global economic slump.