Wen Jia Bao visits MG UK

---

Last week China’s premier Wen Jia Bao visited the UK on a trade visit to boost trade volumes between the UK and China. Wen’s visit saw him fly into the central city of Birmingham and he also paid a visit to Stratford upon Avon and finished his visit in London where he met with the British Prime Minister David Cameron before leaving for Germany. During the visit China and Britain signed deals worth some 1 billion Pounds Sterling which will further pull the two countries together. One of the center pieces of Anglo-Sino ties over the past 6 years has been SAIC’s purchasing and redevelopment of the bankrupt British car maker MG-Rover, SAIC took over the MG brand in 2008 when they bought out Nanjing Auto who previously bought the Longbridge factory and MG brand. Under SAIC’s control MG has become one of China’s fastest growing brands and has already launched in the UK, SAIC uses the MG technical center in Birmingham to research and develop its new car range and also carries out car assembly at the factory.

Wen Jia Bao was on hand to launch the MG6 sedan, which is called the MG6 Magnette in the UK, Wen was actually late in arriving to the MG6 launch as he stayed longer than planned in Stratford-upon-Avon as he was busy soaking up Shakespearen culture that envelopes the town.  Wen was eager to take part in a round table discussion with SAIC’s engineers regarding MG’s future products and technology, owing to his engineering background Wen was able to keep up and actively took part in the discussion according to our sources, he was also privvy to a clay mock up of what the future MG5 will look like when it hits the production lines. Wen was also on hand to launch the first MG6 Magnette as it came off the production line, the Magnette will be on sale on July 15th.

Wen later had lunch with a cross section of the MG workforce higher management to factory workers sat with Wen in the MG6 canteen for a relaxed Chinese lunch. One MG insider told us: “The Premier spent around two hours here and many people commented on how relaxed and smiling he was – looked like he really enjoyed the visit.“