Shanghai Volkswagen Automotive Co. Thursday signed an agreement to build its fifth assembly plant in east China's Jiangsu Province.

The plant in Yizheng City has an annual production capacity of 300,000 vehicles, the carmarker said in a statement.

The plant is expected to start operation at the end of 2012 and create more than 3,000 jobs, it said.

Company executives declined to give further details, including the amount of investment.

Shanghai Volkswagen is a joint venture between China's largest carmaker SAIC Group and German auto giant Volkswagen AG. It has three assembly plants in Shanghai's Jiading District and one plant in Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu.

SAIC sold 1.77 million vehicles in the first half, up 45 percent from a year earlier, said Hu Maoyuan, chairman of SAIC Group.

Jochem Heizmann, a board member of Volkswagen, said the new plant would help double Volkswagen's sales in China in 2013 or 2014. Last year, it sold a record 1.4 million vehicles in China.

Volkswagen's other China joint venture, FAW-Volkswagen Automobile Co. announced last month it would invest 8 billion yuan (1.18 billion U.S. dollars) in building a 300,000-unit plant in Foshan City in south China's Guangdong Province.

The plant is expected to start producing cars in the second half of 2013.