Guangzhou's automobile industry, the city's largest pillar industry, produced 1.8 million vehicles in 2012 and will turn out 3 million vehicles a year by 2015. The target was set by Mayor Wan Qingliang during the 2010 Guangzhou Auto Industry Investment Promotion Seminar on December 22. It indicates that the municipal government will continue to give high priority to the growth of the city's auto industry during the term of the 12th Five-Year Plan.

At the seminar, Mayor Wan said that Guangzhou is on track to become China's first provincial capital city to have an annual GDP of more than 1 trillion yuan and a per capita GDP close to 100,000 yuan, and that as the city's brightest "name card", Guangzhou's auto industry is expected to reach an annual output volume of 1.3 million vehicles and an annual output value of 300 billion yuan this year.

Mayor Wan also stated that Guangzhou will continue to promote R&D at joint ventures in the auto industry, increase the percentage of vehicles made domestically, and promote the R&D of homegrown automakers, so that by 2015, the city can produce more than 150,000 vehicles of homegrown brands annually, and control at least five percent of the domestic market for high-end and mid-range cars of homegrown brands by 2020.

"We'll give priority to the development of electrical vehicles and hybrid-power vehicles; we'll also set out to develop fuel-cell vehicles. At the same time, we will tap into the overseas auto market, so that more Guangzhou-made vehicles will be running all over the world", said Mayor Wan.