FAW VW says no plan to stop Jetta production

Shanghai, May 26 (Gasgoo.com) FAW VW has made it clear that the joint venture has no plan to stop the production of its hot-selling Jetta model in the new facility under construction in Chengdu, xinhuanet.com said today. A company executive stressed that the Jetta brand will not vanish, as it is needed in the market.

FAW and Volkswagen recently broke ground for their sedan plant in Chengdu, capital city of southwest China's Sichuan province. The first phase of the project, with 5 billion yuan ($732 mln) invested, will have an annual output of 150,000 cars. Reportedly, the new Jetta NF model will be built at the facility in 2012 to replace the current Jetta model.

Industry insiders noted that it is impossible for FAW VW to phase out the production of Jetta, as currently the company has no other model to replace this one in the market. In 2008, the sales of Jetta cars reached 200,000 units, accounting for 40% of FAW VW's total sales of the year. Jetta is seeing its popularity and demand growing in medium- and small-size cities across the country.

Jetta will be the first model to roll off the assembly line at the new Chengdu plant. Meanwhile, the new facility will also produce a compact car model NCS (New Compact Sedan) as the next generation model of Sagitar. This NCS model is scheduled to sell 9,960 units in 2010 and 88,075 units a year by 2015.

The new Chengdu plant will have an annual capacity of 150,000 units initially, rising to 350,000 at last. The FAW VW started producing Jetta cars in July 2007 at FAW's Chengdu factory, a facility now already bought by the joint venture.