Guangzhou Automobile Group is talking with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles to intensify their links in China as the world's largest car market looks to relax some regulations and the Chinese firm prepares to sell its own Trumpchi brand in the US.
Models, production and sales are at the core of the discussions with Fiat Chrysler, Guangzhou Automobile President Feng Xingya said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. "Shareholders of both companies are exploring ways to expand the scope of cooperation," he added. A spokesman for Fiat Chrysler declined to comment to Bloomberg's news service.
"Making our company a global player is a very important breakthrough for us in our five year plan" to the end of 2020, Feng said in the interview. "The US market is very important to Guangzhou Automobile" and achieving success there was "symbolically significant" for the company's global ambitions, he said.
Guangzhou Automobile makes Jeep and Fiat models in China through a joint venture with Fiat Chrysler and sales more than tripled to 146,439 units last year.
"GAC has a real interest in deepening relations with Fiat Chrysler to expand outside China, especially in the US," Vincenzo Longo, a strategist at IG Markets in Milan, told Bloomberg. "Fiat hasn't been able so far to catch up with competitors in China, so there is much room to improve."
Guangzhou Automobile also has local ventures with Toyota and Honda and plans to start exporting its own Trumpchi sport utility vehicles to the US in 2019.
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By GlobalDataIt will move to produce in the US if American consumers welcome Trumpchi models imported from China, Feng told Bloomberg.
"We are very satisfied with our cooperation with FCA," the executive said. "We have yet to reach a conclusion on how to cooperate with FCA when we begin manufacturing in the US. and we have also not begun discussions with other Chinese automakers on whether to make cars together in the US."