Changan Ford Mazda joint venture officially splits up

Gasgoo.com (Shanghai December 3) - Changan Automobile Group, along with its foreign partners Ford and Mazda, officially released a statement announcing the formal division of their three-way joint venture, China Business News reported today. The statement signifies that the separation, which was decided upon more than a year ago, is finally complete.

According to the statement, the government has already approved the three companies' requests to separate the Changan Ford Mazda joint venture. In the JV's place, two new companies, Changan Ford and Changan Mazda, have been formed. Both new JVs are equally owned by Changan and its foreign partners, and will focus on research, development, sales and customer service for their respective brands.

Changan also has plans to use the Changan Mazda and Changan PSA JVs as springboards to sell some of its own brand products, in order to help it fulfill its goal of selling 3.6 million own brand vehicles by 2020. If everything goes according to its plans, own brand vehicles will constitute 60 percent of Changan's total automobile sales.

In other news, production of the new Changan Raeton sedan has officially begun. The manufacturer's new 11.5 billion yuan ($1.83b) production site in Beijing has also officially begun operation.