GM to invest $174 million in Kansas plant

General Motors will invest $174 million in its Fairfax plant in Kansas City, Kan., to pay for new equipment and technology to produce the 2016 Malibu, company officials said Monday. Production of the midsize sedan, which was unveiled in early April, is scheduled to begin at the plant this year. The investment will not mean any new jobs at the plant, which employs 3,230 hourly and 270 salaried workers building Malibu and Buick Lacrosse models. The plant investment is part of a three-year, $5.4 billion GM spending plan to retool some of its U.S. plants. CEO Mary Barra was at the Kansas plant Monday to announce the investment and celebrate as the company noted production of 500 million vehicles in its history.

Chinese manufacturing slows sharply in April

Chinese manufacturing saw its sharpest contraction in a year in April, raising pressure on Beijing to roll out new stimulus to keep growth in the world’s No. 2 economy from slipping below the official target, a report said Monday. HSBC’S manufacturing index based on a survey of factory purchasing managers fell to a 12-month low of 48.9 in April from 49.6 in March. The index is based on a 100-point scale on which numbers below 50 show contraction. The report said total new orders declined at the fastest rate in a year while production levels stagnated. New export orders, however, improved slightly over the previous month, suggesting that weak domestic demand was the main culprit behind the overall decline. The latest reading, which is worse than a preliminary reading of 49.2 released in late April, highlights growing urgency for policy-makers in Beijing to step in with more stimulus measures to prevent a sharper slowdown as economic growth cools. Recent figures showed that the economy expanded at its slowest pace in six years in the first three months of the year.