Chryslers to come back to China via Guangzhou-Fiat

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Guangzhou-Fiat, the recently sealed joint venture deal between Guangzhou Auto and Fiat, are planning to bring Chrysler to China under a deal which will see the American car company having its cars made locally in China. It was previously believed that the conditions for Chrysler to reenter the Chinese market were not an advanced enough stage, but with Fiat now owning a controlling share in Chrysler it is believed that Chrysler is ready for Chinese production.

Both Fiat and Chrysler have had a bad run of luck in the Chinese market, in 1999 Fiat set up a joint venture partnership with Nanjing Auto but both Fiat and Nanjing Auto neglected the partnership which ultimately broke down in 2007 when Fiat believed that Nanjing Auto were spending too much time on the MG project, later Nanjing Auto was merged into Shanghai Auto. Technically Chrysler were one of the earliest companies to enter China when AMC set up a joint venture with Beijing Auto to produce the Jeep Cherokee in China in 1984, Chrysler later bought AMC but neglected the China operations until it was too late. Chrysler did put the 300C and Sebring models into production in China, it was revealed to China Car Times by inside sources that the Chrysler JV played second fiddle to the Daimler-Benz joint venture, especially as Daimler and Chrysler were partners at the time.

Guangzhou-Fiat revealed its plans for the Chinese market in September 2010, the company is to invest 5 billion RMB in China and will call Changsha city its home, in the first period the factory will have a production capacity of 140,000 vehicles per year and 220,000 engines, and if the market conditions allow by 2014-2015 yearly production can be expanded to 250,000-300,000 vehicles per year.