Jiangling Motors May sales up 68% to 15,7000 vehicles

Shanghai, June 7 (Gasgoo.com) Jiangling Motors Co, a commercial van partner of Ford Motor, announced last week that its vehicles sales in May grew 68.22% from a year earlier to 15,700 units, media reported.

The company, based in east China's Jiangxi province, produced 16,400 vehicles last month, an increase of 73.03% over May 2009, the company said in a statement on Wednesday evening.

For the first five months, Jiangling Motors made 69,100 vehicles and sold 73,300 units, up 61.47% and 67.47% year on year, respectively.

Jiangling Motors, a Ford Motor's Chinese partner which makes and sells the Transit series. In the first quarter, Sales of Jiangling-made Ford Transit rose 64% year on year to 11,438 units.

The Transit is a commercial vehicle brand of Ford Motor which entered the Chinese market in 1997. By April 30, Jiangling Motors had sold out 6 million Transit vans it produced.

Last month Jiangling Motor announced its plans to invest 600 million yuan ($87.9 million) this year to expand its production capacity. The expansion will lift Jiangling's annual output to 210,000 vehicles.

Jiangling recently re-launched its Landwind brand in Europe with a new minivan, five years after an SUV built by the automaker was pulled from European markets after failing a local crash test.