Beijing approves £1bn joint venture
Jaguar Land Rover is to manufacture cars in China for the first time, after the Chinese authorities approved a £1bn joint venture with Chery Automobile.
The West Midlands-based firm is to build a plant near Shanghai, which is due to open in 2015. It is likely that Land Rover’s Evoque or Freelander models will be built there.
Manufacturing in China allows JLR to avoid significant import taxes, making its products even more attractive to a country that is now the largest car-buying market in the world. Sales of JLR models in China have risen by 80 per cent this year alone.
The factory would also allow JLR to build cars designed specifically for the Chinese market, where the emphasis is on being driven, rather than driving yourself.
JLR emphasised that cars produced in China would be in addition to existing output from the UK, and that there were no plans to move its manufacturing base out of Britain.
Daljinder Nagra