Kia Motors said on Thursday it had postponed indefinitely a groundbreaking ceremony for its first US plant amid a graft probe targetting its president.
Prosecutors on early Thursday summoned Kia chief Chung Eui-Sun, the only son and heir of Hyundai Motor chief Chung Mong-Koo, over a widening investigation into a slush fund scandal.
"We already put off the groundbreaking ceremony from April 27 to May 10. But we have decided to delay it further without fixing any specific date," a spokesman of Kia Motors, Kang Hyun-Keun, told journalists.
South Korea's Kia Motors said last month it would set up a 1.2 billion dollar plant in West Point, Troup County, Georgia, as parent Hyundai Motor pushes a global expansion drive.
The southern state had been competing with Mississippi and Kentucky for the new plant which will be completed by 2009 with an annual capacity of 300,000 units. Chung Eui-Sun was grilled by prosecutors earlier Thursday.