JMC’s Xiaolan Plant opens and now takes the partnership between Ford and JMC to a new level. Apart from introducing new products and technology, it doubles the capacity. The president and CEO of Ford inaugurated the plant and commented that the plant will manufacture both Ford and JMC-branded vehicles and has the capacity of making 300,000 units every year. This is doubles JMC’s capacity. The JMC Xiaolan Plant will raise the production capacity of the annual vehicles from 245,000 units to 545,000 units. Ford’s strategic partner Jiangling Motors Corp, makes a US$300 million investment. The two partners plan to introduce 2 completely new Ford products and a brand new engine plant.
JMC-branded vehicles will benefit from the global manufacturing expertise of Ford and make for a highly flexible production line that will boast of maximized efficiency. The first vehicle from the production that saw daylight was the seven millionth one. Ford has found a good partner in Jangling in China and is proud of the partnership. Both the partners are in a long-term commitment and have big plans to introduce new products and increase the capacity, while taking advantage of the new technologies from Ford. Along with the setup of the JMC Xiaolan Plant, the 2 partners also announced a brand new engine plant in its Xiaolan manufacturing base with an annual capacity of 200,000 units.
Ford will introduce 2 innovative products under the expansion of the JMC partnership and these are all-new Ford SUV and an all-new Ford commercial vehicle. The complete portfolio of vehicles from Ford will comprise of light commercial, heavy duty truck and SUV segments in China. The series of recent announcements only project the success of 17-year partnership between Ford and JMC. Ford had announced an increase in its stake form 30 percent to 31.5 percent in JMC in April 2013. The acquisition of Taiyuan Heavy Truck by JMC gave Ford a major foothold in China in the segment of heavy duty truck.
