Nissan is to spend over CNY5bn (US$785m) on a new plant at Dalian, a city in northeastern China, as part of a strategy to gain ground on rivals such as General Motors.
The carmaker is spending CNY30bn (US$4.7bn) in China by the end of 2015. The Dalian factory, jointly owned with local partner Dongfeng Motor, will have an initial capacity of 25,000 cars when it begins production in 2014, sources told the Reuters news agency. Capacity will be up to 120,000 by 2015 and 240,000 by 2017.
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It will assemble more upscale SUVs, sedans and MPVs, the sources said. Nissan did not comment.
China is already Nissan’s largest market even though it arrived much later than GM and Volkswagen. The company unveiled ambitious plans last year to boost sales there to 2.3m vehicles in 2015, part of its mid-term business plan to raise the company’s global market share and profit margin to 8% in six years.
To achieve this, Nissan plans to launch about 30 new products during including an electric vehicle under the joint venture’s new brand name Venucia.
Nissan sold 1.25m vehicles in China last year, up 21.9% year on year.
