Renault opens plant in Hubei province to produce Kadjar SUV

Jacques Daniel, president of Dongfeng Renault gestures at the plant opening ceremony in Wuhan, Hubei province, on Feb 1, 2016. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

"A 5 percent growth in the world's largest car market is more than 1 million units. The growth will be sustainable in the future, and the market is not fluctuating up and down. That will be good for Renault," he said. "We want to be part of the future growth."

Jerome Stoll, executive vice-president of Renault, said the joint venture has "the right product to start with, while the SUV market is growing quickly. ... Kadjar is in the compact SUV segment, the most popular segment, and it is properly priced and is built with quality to attract consumers."

"We will expand our network through competitive dealers and we will add dealers as quickly as the market expands."

Dongfeng Renault's network comprises 125 dealerships on the Chinese mainland and complies with the Renault brand's standards for customer satisfaction, according to the news release.

Stoll added that: "It is very important for the dealers to be profitable. It won't be the case that to expand to more dealers but at the cost of low profitability."

Dongfeng Renault controls its own network of dealers for its autos, both imported and domestically produced, a change from the past 15 years, when Chinese customers could only buy imported Renaults shipped from South Korea.

"We want profitable growth," said Jacques Daniel, president of Dongfeng Renault.

Hu Xindong added that the company is "trying to boost brand awareness".

"We hired Fan Bingbing as the image ambassador and we are sponsoring the Wuhan Marathon this year. It's been challenging to nurture the market because we are a new joint venture to many Chinese people."

History in China

In 1993, Renault established its first joint venture in China with Sanjiang Aerospace Group in Xiaogan, Hubei province. Sanjiang Renault manufactured light commercial vehicles, but ceased production in 2004.

In 2013, Dongfeng Motor purchased Sanjiang's equity in the joint venture and Sanjiang Renault was renamed Dongfeng Renault.

Until the middle of 2014, Renault Beijing Automotive Co sold imported models. It later merged into Dongfeng Renault.

Dongfeng Motor, China's second-largest carmaker by volume, has six overseas partners, tops in the country by number of joint ventures. The company operates ventures with Nissan, Peugeot and Citroen, Volvo, Honda, Kia and Yulon.