Chery Automobile Co., China's biggest domestic automaker, plans to set up three assembly plants abroad in the Middle East, Eastern Europe and South America, a news report and a company spokeswoman said Tuesday.

The announcement adds to ambitious plans for Chery, which says it hopes to export to the United States and announced a plan in December to make cars for Germany's DaimlerChrysler AG.

"We will formulate a clear plan for these plants this year," the government newspaper China Daily quoted Chery chairman Yin Tongyao as saying. The report said Yin gave no specific locations for the factories or a timetable for opening them.

A Chery spokeswoman, Xie Ling, confirmed that the company plans to open the three factories but said she had no other information.

Chery is China's biggest domestic automaker, with 272,400 vehicles sold last year. But it trails General Motors Corp., which sold 876,747 vehicles last year, as the country's biggest automaker overall.

Chery, based in the southeastern province of Zhejian, south of Shanghai, already assembles vehicles abroad in facilities run with local partners in Iran, Malaysia, Russia, Ukraine, Brazil and Egypt, according to the China Daily.

Chery announced plans in 2005 with a U.S. partner to export vehicles to the United States as early as this year. It later suspended that plan but says it wants eventually to enter the U.S. market.

Other Chinese automakers also say they hope to sell in the United States, but industry analysts say they will have trouble meeting safety and environmental standards.

Chery and DaimlerChrysler said in December that the Chinese automaker would manufacture cars for sale worldwide under the Dodge, Chrysler or Jeep brands.