The central Bulgarian town of Lovech is about to become an unlikely front line in the global car industry's great reshuffling. In a statement released last week, Chinese auto giant Great Wall Motors (GWM) confirmed it will begin vehicle production at a base in Lovech by early 2027, targeting the first quarter, with a compact SUV first off the line. Its partner on the ground is Bulgarian Automotive Industry (BAI), which operates a plant in Bahovitsa and has cooperated with GWM in the past — though neither side disclosed the financial details of the agreement.
The timing explains the urgency. GWM sold just 3,500 cars in Europe in 2025, a 25.4 percent drop from the year before, and the company is betting that localized production — and the capacity planned for Lovech — will finally let it compete head-to-head with established rivals instead of scrapping at the margins. Building inside the EU's borders changes the arithmetic for a brand that has so far struggled to convert Chinese scale into European share.
Bulgaria, for its part, is already voting with its registrations. More than 4,400 new Chinese vehicles were registered in the country during the first nine months of the year — a striking 10 percent of total domestic new car sales. What was recently a curiosity has become a tenth of the market, and the Lovech base hands Chinese automakers something they have never had in the region: local production.
