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ollowing its factory shutdown, auto giant General Motors (GM) of the US may try its luck yet again in the Indonesian market by producing and selling the rising domestic product '€” low-cost green cars (LCGC) '€” through a US$700 million plant it will build with Chinese partners SAIC Motor Corp. and Wuling Motors, industry officials said.

GM announced Thursday the closure of its assembly plant in Bekasi, West Java, as it has lost out in competition with Japanese rivals that have long dominated Southeast Asia'€™s major automarket.

Industry Ministry'€™s director for land transportation vehicles Soerjono said Friday that a GM executive had revealed GM'€™s interest in producing the fuel-efficient and affordable cars.

'€œGM will lead LCGC since its production cost is low since the car'€™s parts and components are readily available in the market so that it is inexpensive,'€ he told reporters at his office.

GM and its counterparts are preparing for the construction of the plant, which would be able to produce 150,000 cars each year, Industry Minister Saleh Husin said. '€œThe firm has already secured a space in an industrial estate in West Java,'€ he told The Jakarta Post in a text message.

GM will stop producing its low-cost minivan Spin at the end of June and close down its existing plant, which employs around 500 workers, Reuters reported. This will then limit its operation in Indonesia as a sales unit only.

Earlier, the automaker aimed to localize its production, but the plan did not work as its sales volume in Indonesia has been very low, resulting in high production costs. It assembled less than 25 percent of the 40,000 vehicles that could have been produced at the Bekasi plant and sold 8,412 cars locally, exporting 3,000.

Overall, GM delivered less than 11,000 vehicles last year, garnering a market share of below 1 percent. Introduced in 2013, the LCGC has become increasingly popular in the country where car sales already exceed 1.2 million units annually, dominated by multi-purpose vehicles (MPVs).

Major producers, such as Toyota and Suzuki, have been exporting the new model to the Philippines and Pakistan, respectively, since last year.

Soerjono further said GM would focus on the Indonesian market, but would be open to opportunities to sell its vehicles overseas, particularly in other ASEAN countries.

GM public relation director Maria Sidabutar could not be reached to confirm GM'€™s future business plan. Chinese partner of GM, SAIC-GM-Wuling (SGMW), earlier this month said in a statement that the investment in a new plant would be realized later this year, subject to government'€™s approval. The vehicles from the facility would be sold under the Wuling brand.

SGMW now runs manufacturing bases in three locations in China and has gained a position as a market leader in mini-commercial vehicle makers since 2006. It sold a record high of 1.79 million vehicles across China in 2014.