Fiat, Guangzhou agree to build Jeeps at JV plant in China, report says
21 August 2013
Fiat, Guangzhou agree to build Jeeps at JV plant in China, report says
Fiat Group and Guangzhou Automobile Group Co. have agreed to produce Jeeps in their joint-venture assembly plant in the central China city of Changsha, according to Chinese media.
The two parties will sign an agreement on the production plan in the coming months, reported National Business Daily, a Shanghai-based newspaper, which cited Changsha city government sources.
Chrysler Group and its majority owner, Fiat Group, reached a preliminary agreement in January with Guangzhou Automobile Group Co. to build Jeeps in China.
But the two sides disagreed on where to build the Jeep vehicles. Fiat-Chrysler insisted that the vehicles be produced at GAC Fiat Automobile Co. while Guangzhou Auto preferred to make them at its own assembly plant in the south China city of Guangzhou.
GAC Fiat, established in 2010 in Changsha, is a 50-50 joint venture between Guangzhou Auto and Fiat. It can produce 140,000 vehicles a year.
At the GAC Fiat plant, Jeep models will share an assembly line with the Fiat Viaggio compact sedan, the first model from Fiat's joint venture with Guangzhou, which is currently under production. That will improve the plant's capacity utilization, the National Business Daily reported.
In the first seven months of this year, GAC Fiat has sold only 20,000 Fiat Viaggios, according to the newspaper.
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