Joint Venture Carmaker Reports More Market Shares

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, March 01, 2002

Joint Venture Carmaker Reports More Market Shares

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Guangzhou Honda Automobile Co., Ltd., a joint venture between the Japanese Honda Group and China's Guangzhou Automobile Group, announced Friday that it sold 6,454 Accord cars in the first two months of this year, which has brought its China market share of luxury cars to 34.6 percent.

Zeng Qinghong, executive general manager of the fifty-fifty joint venture, said in an interview that the company has set two main targets for 2002: the production and sale of 55,000 cars; andthe completion of an expansion project to increase its total salesto 120,000 cars annually.

The company also plans to begin production of Odyssey, a multi-purpose vehicle, in April, increase the number of its dealerships to 120 and make 13.21 billion yuan (1.59 billion U.S. dollars) in sales revenue this year.

The joint venture in south China's Guangdong Province was established in 1998. It began production of the luxury Accord model in 1999 and has since rolled over 100,000 of them. Accordingto Zeng, the company has achieved 60 percent local input in its products, and this enables it to withstand tariff cuts introduced since China's entry into the WTO.

Zeng predicts that China will issue a new quota for car importsthis month. "This would trigger a new wave of car imports and subsequently bring price cuts for luxury cars in April and May," said Zeng.

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