BMW Brilliance Automotive reached several milestones this year and is planning new achievements in 2013, the 10th Anniversary of its founding.

Workers on the BMW Brilliance assembly line in Shenyang. Photos provided to China Daily

An essential component to meeting the challenges of China's highly competitive luxury auto market is localization.

In May, production started at its new Tiexi plant, which expanded the automaker's capacity in the city of Shenyang to 200,000 units this year. In 2013, the production capacity will reach 300,000.

BMW Brilliance, the joint venture between its namesake automakers from Germany and China, is headquartered in the northeastern Chinese city.

The new factory is designed to produce 200,000 vehicles annually by 2013.

The Tiexi plant uses the latest manufacturing technology and a state-of-the-art design to lower energy consumption and emissions.

BMW Brilliance also has an engine plant in Shenyang. The N20 engines with BMW TwinPower Turbo technology are being produced here. It is BMW's first engine factory outside Europe.

Construction of a new engine plant will start in mid 2013, by the time when the plant starts production in 2015. It will have an annual production capacity of 400,000.

Current models being made in Tiexi include BMW X1 and 3 Series LWB, while the 5 Series LWB are being made in Dadong plant.

Sales of the long-wheelbase 5 Series in the first 11 months of 2012 surpassed 90,000 units, a year-on-year increase of over 50 percent. Sales of the locally made X1 and the 3 Series are also strong.

The new plants and burgeoning sales are among the high points in BMW Brilliance's decade-long history, said Olaf Kastner, president and CEO of the joint venture.

He said two key factors contributed to the achievements.

"The first is the same voice and same face to our customers. We will not say that this car is made in China or that one is imported, and then treat customers differently," he said.

"Inside BMW, our pursuit of quality never changes. As long as we say that the car is made by BMW, the quality and other criteria are the same across the globe. There are no BMWs made in Germany or made in China, there are only cars made by BMW. This is a very important factor to our success."

The second factor, he noted, is that BMW Group and its Chinese partners support and cooperate with each other to ensure smooth development.

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