Shanghai VW may move its Santana 3000 production line to Nanjing

Shanghai. October 22 (Gasgoo.com) Shanghai may move its Santana 3000 production line to Nanjing. Chinese media the 21 Century Economic Report said today.

 

Shanghai VW and Najing Fiat have reached an agreement on the production of Santana 3000 in Nanjing. Under the agreement, Shanghai VW may rent the production facilities from Nanjing Fiat to produce Santana 3000, the report said.

 

However, a detailed plan to rent Nanjing Fiat production will depend on the negotiation progress between Shanghai VW and Nanjing Fiat and it also has to be approved by Board of Director of Shanghai VW.

 

"At the beginning, we planned to move the assembly shop to Nanjing. Later, we've changed our plan; we decide to move the whole production line out, including the painting, soldering and assemly line," said an unnamed Shanghai VW official. "Our decision to choose Nanjing is based on its geographical location and costs; the labor costs in Nanjing are only a half as much as that in Shanghai."

 

As Shanghai VW's best selling model, Santana 3000 sold 76,172 units in the first nine months this year. However, auto commentators say the car model is too old-fashioned to survive China's fast evolving auto market. Shanghai VW may plan to sell Santana 3000 to China's second or third tier cities (Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou constitute China's first tier cities).