Carmaker scales back big expansion plans

Blaming the government's tighter credit policies, carmaker Geely Automobile Holdings said it is scaling back sales and production targets. The firm, China's eighth largest automaker with nearly 5% of the domestic market, had planned to raise annual output to 1 million units by 2007, from 80,000 last year. But right now it has production capacity for 200,000 units and anticipates selling only 90,000 units this year, down from its original target of 100,000. The company said plans to spend $1 billion (US$128.2 million) a year on expanding capacity have been put on hold.