According to motor industry analyst Vic Heylen, the sale could raise €150 to 200 million, with the buyer most likely to be a Chinese manufacturer. The sale is also a sign, he said, that the Astra production line has been sold to another buyer already - otherwise it, too, would have been offered for sale.

Union representative Rudi Kennes, however, is convinced that Chinese buyer Zhenzhou Hi-Tech Vehicle (CHTC) has a business plan worked out under which it would invest €600 million to build 30,000 units of the old-model Astra in Antwerp for export to China, as well as the Landwind SUV and an electric bus. He denied claims made by Heylen and others that CHTC was a ghost corporation no-one had ever heard of. "It is a consortium of companies active in helicopter manufacture, the production of military night-sights and the construction of buses and lorry parts," Kennes told De Standaard.

Heylen countered: "My colleague has worked in China for years. He looked into the matter and couldn't find a single car manufacturer, supplier or investment company with the name CHTC. Nobody knows what these Chinese people are up to."

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