Ford Motor to boost China auto parts purchase
(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-10-27 13:45
BEIJING - Ford Motor Co. expects to buy more than US$2.6
billion worth of auto parts in China for overseas use this year and build a new
factory with Japanese affiliate Mazda Motor Corp. and local partner Changan
Automotive Group.
Ford's chairman, William Clay Ford, disclosed the plan for boosting China
sources during a visit to Beijing on Thursday, said company spokesman Kenneth
Hsu.
That amount would be 63 percent higher than the US$1.6 billion (euro1.3
billion) Ford spent on China-made auto parts in 2005, Hsu said.
The new auto plant, to be launched in 2007, will be located in eastern
China's Nanjing and will produce up to 160,000 vehicles a year. Coupled with an
expansion at a factory in the southwestern city of Chongqing, it will boost
total capacity to more than 400,000 units a year, the company said in a
statement.
Meanwhile, Changan Ford Mazda Engine Co., an engine joint venture between the
three parties, will also launch a plant in Nanjing in the first half of next
year with annual capacity of 350,000 engines, the statement said.
Ford, which posted a preliminary third-quarter loss of US$5.8 billion
(euro4.6 billion) in its worldwide business, has seen strong sales growth in
booming China. Its vehicle sales in China more than doubled to 114,685 units in
the first three quarters of this year from 55,807 in the same period last
year.
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