FAW-VW sees sales of VW cars soar 35% in 2009

FAW-Volkswagen recently announced that full-year sales of its Volkswagen-badge cars in 2009 will grow at least 35 percent over last year to around 527,000 units.

In the first 11 months, FAW-VW, a 50-50 joint venture between FAW Group and Volkswagen AG, sold a total of 616,509 Volkswagen cars and Audi cars, up 31.9 percent from a year earlier. The venture sold more than 390,000 VW cars and some 120,000 Audi cars last year.

"Sales of our Volkswagen brand will continue robust growth of more than 20 percent next year," said Hu Yong, FAW-VW's vice-president for sales and marketing, adding that the company is likely to meet the goal of selling 1 million cars of the two brands by 2013, five years ahead of schedule.

Yet the company now faces a big problem with capacity constraints. FAW-VW currently has two auto plants in northeast China's Changchun city with a combined annual capacity of 660,000 vehicles. Those facilities are expected to boost production to 750,000 or 800,000 units.

The joint venture began construction in May on a 5-billion-yuan ($732 mln), 150,000-unit plant in Chengdu, capital of southwestern Sichuan province. The new factory will start operation at the end of next year, with its long-term capacity set to reach 350,000 cars.

Set up in 1991, FAW-VW now produces a wide range of Volkswagen models, including the Jetta, Bora, Golf, Caddy, Sagitar and Magotan. It also makes the Audi A6L, A4L and Q5.