Dongfeng Auto setting up LCV production base

Shanghai, March 27 (Gasgoo.com) Dongfeng Automobile Co., Ltd. (SHA 600006), which is a listed unit of Dongfeng Motor Co. Ltd., a joint venture between Dongfeng Motor Corp and Nissan Motor Co, recently broke ground in Xiangfan Industrial Park, Hubei province to build a manufacturing base of light commercial vehicles (LCV), sina.com said today.

The 1.75 billion yuan ($256 million) project, codenamed "A08 Project", will include the product line, engineering line and technical manufacturing line of the carmaker's LCV production base, which will develop and make globally competitive Dongfeng-brand European-style luxury light buses / coaches. The first stage of the project is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2010.

Dongfeng Auto sold 170,000 commercial vehicles in 2008, representing total value of 17 billion yuan. The company has seen its light vehicles sales increase 70% from 100,000 units sold in 2005. This year, Dongfeng Auto aims to increase vehicle sales by 5% to 183,700 units and to produce and sell 139,500 engines for achieving sales revenue of 17.5 billion yuan.

In 2009, the automaker will start developing Dongfeng-brand small engines to improve the core competitiveness of light commercial vehicles produced by the joint venture Dongfeng Nissan.

Located in central China's Hubei province, Xiangfan is a Chinese "auto town" where many Dongfeng-brand vehicles have been made. The new LCV manufacturing base of Dongfeng Auto will boost the annual output of Xiangfan-made vehicles to 500,000 units and power assembly output to a million units.