China's Dongfeng Motor and Nissan Motor have spun off their jointly developed Venucia brand into a stand-alone company.
Venucia was originally launched in 2010 as a domestic Chinese brand to market cars based on Nissan platforms with localised design features developed in the company's studio in Guangzhou.
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It was launched in response to the Chinese government's policy guideline originally announced in 2009 to encourage foreign joint ventures to establish local brands.
Both partners each hold a 50% stake in the new company, called Dongfeng Venucia, which is registered in Guangzhou. It is headed by Zhou Xianpeng, the current vice-president of Dongfeng Motor.
Dongfeng Venucia has already established its own sales subsidiary, also based in Guangzhou.
A total of 480,000 Venucia cars have been sold to date, split between eight models, with 114,000 sales reported in 2016 alone.
Dongfeng Venucia said it plans to spend CNY2bn in the next five years to bring one new model to market every year in this period to give it a complete passenger vehicle line comprising sedans, SUVs and MPVs.
