A senior executive at GM Korea said that the American automaker has no plans to withdraw from the South Korean market.

GM Korea Vice President Choi Jong relayed General Motors’ stance on Monday during a National Assembly inspection session on the state-run Korea Development Bank(KDB), the second-largest shareholder of GM’s Korean unit. 

Choi denied the suspicions that GM is moving to reduce production volumes from South Korea and plans to use expected opposition from the local labor union to justify its eventual withdrawal from the market. 

Stressing GM Korea’s importance for the U.S. carmaker not only as a manufacturing hub but also as a research and development site, he argued that the local branch is smoothly carrying out its normalization plan.

In May of last year, GM and the KDB signed a deal on a rescue package for the struggling South Korean branch amid speculation the American auto giant was planning to close all its factories and cease operations in the country.