UPDATE: GM Plans To Import Chinese-Built Vehicles Into US

General Motors Corp. (GM) plans to start importing Chinese-built vehicles into the U.S. in 2011, according to an outline the auto maker submitted to the U.S. government.

GM currently makes vehicles in China for sale in Asia. But the Detroit company plans for the first time to ship some of them to the U.S. to save on manufacturing costs.

GM told Congress that the company plans to ship 17,335 Chinese-built vehicles to the U.S. in 2011. That figure would jump to more than 38,000 in 2012 and more than 53,000 in 2013, the document states. Imports from other countries, including South Korea, Japan and Mexico, also would increase.

The plan is part of a broader cost-cutting strategy at GM, which has said it intends to eliminate 21,000 U.S. manufacturing jobs. The plans are being devised under the guidance of President Obama's auto-industry task force as part of GM's restructuring.

GM's intention to import more cars is being strongly opposed by the United Auto Workers union, which argues that the company, surviving on more than $15 billion in U.S. loans, shouldn't use taxpayer money to subsidize U.S. job losses.

GM provided a document to U.S. lawmakers showing that even with the new imports from China, the proportion of overall imports to U.S.-made vehicles would remain roughly the same through 2014, since the company projects an overall rise in vehicle sales. The company estimates that in 2014, 66% of all vehicles sold in the U.S. will have been manufactured at U.S. plants, down a percentage point from 2009.

Those estimates are based on a projection that industrywide vehicle sales in the U.S. will reach 16.8 million in 2014, which some observers consider optimistic. Union backers fear that if those expectations are not met, U.S. plants, and not overseas plants, would see the first productions cuts.

A GM spokesman declined to comment Wednesday, saying that talks with the union are ongoing.

-By Josh Mitchell, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-862-6637; [e-mail]