Volkswagen AG has named the former head of its Asia-Pacific region, Bernd Leissner, to head up its Chinese operations.
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Volkswagen AG said in a statement that Leissner would assume his post in Beijing immediately, heading a new team of top executives in its biggest market outside Germany.
VW has a dominant position in the Chinese market but faces increasing competition from new entrants, which threaten its high margins on sales in the territory. VW signed a letter of intent at the beginning of May to build a new automotive plant near Shanghai in order to help meet its goal of doubling production capacity to 1.6 million cars by 2008.
Leissner’s five-man team will include sales boss Walter Hanek, technology head Barthel Schroeder, purchasing chief Ruediger Koch and Suixin Zhang, who will head up personnel.
Volkswagen has yet to appoint a finance chief for China, but the carmaker said this would be done shortly.
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By GlobalDataIt aims to sell more than 800,000 vehicles in China in 2004 after delivering some 698,000 cars to customers last year.
