Hyundai Motor's Chairman Chung Mong- koo left for China on Monday amid widening investigation into the company's slush fund and bribery scandal.

Chung went to China to attend a ground breaking ceremony for Hyundai's second plant in China on Tuesday and is set to return home on Wednesday, officials of the Hyundai Motor told reporters.

The new factory is expected to double Hyundai Motor's production capacity in China to 600,000 vehicles a year and make Hyundai and its affiliate Kia Motors one of the world's five biggest automaker by 2010.

Ahead of Chung's visit, South Korean prosecutors said that they are likely to question Chung after his return from China as Chung is suspected of masterminding a series of schemes in the past several years to create slush funds and bribe government officials.

The prosecutors detained two top executives of Hyundai last Thursday to probe the bribery scandal and banned more than 10 officials of the company, including Chung's only son and Kia's Chairman Chung Eui-sun, from leaving the country.

Last month, the prosecutors raided the offices of the Hyundai Motor and its affiliates to seize evidence that Hyundai Motor Group had created slush funds worth billions of U.S. dollars for bribery during the past several years.

Source: Xinhua