Fiat relaunched a much slimmed down dealer network in China during late August when it started importing three new models, the Grande Punto, Linea and Bravo.

Fiat has presented three different requests to restart manufacturing in China, the Beijing-based Jinghua newspaper reported this morning. The submissions have been made to China's main economic planning body and they cover joint ventures with Chery Automobile Co, Gunangzhou Automobile Group and Chongqing Changan Suzuki Co. Jinghua reported the news this morning, quoting an unnamed source within Fiat.

Ever since the plug was finally pulled on Fiat's ill-fated joint venture project in China with Nanjing Auto last summer, the Italian company has been searching around to find a new partner as it attempts to make up the ground lost to its rivals in this swiftly growing market. Plans to build Fiat and Alfa Romeo models, starting with the Alfa 159, were hatched with Chery Automobile in the summer of last year although the project, which will use Chery's own engines, soon hit stumbling blocks as the partners had differing strategies.

Meanwhile in August it was revealed that ambitious Chinese player Guangzhou Automobile Group Co had entered into talks with Fiat to purchase the redundant Fiat Palio/Siena/Perla production lines from the now deceased Nanjing Fiat project, with these initial talks quickly extending to the possible supply of several redundant European production lines. Guangzhou Automobile Group wants to use Fiat technology to underpin its plans to develop a much wider own-brand range. Both sides confirmed these talks at the beginning of last month and discussions are believed to have then quickly expanded to encompass a full joint venture between the two firms.

Jinghua, quoting its Fiat source, said that it expects the Chery Automobile Co and Guangzhou Automobile Group Co joint ventures to be approved by the Chinese authorities as early as next month as Fiat slashes its original 300,000 units per year sales target in China by 2010, to a new target of 50,000 units.

Meanwhile as Fiat seeks to recover lost ground in China it wants to enter into a contract manufacturing arrangement with Chongqing Changan Suzuki Co, a joint venture between Changan Motors and Suzuki; the contract will be to produce the Fiat Sedici model for the local market. Suzuki already builds the Sedici crossover model in Hungary for Fiat to sell in the European markets, and the Suzuki SX4, on which the Sedici is based, is already built in China making assembling the Fiat version of the model locally a relatively simple exercise to undertake.

Following the ending of the struggling Nanjing Fiat joint venture last year, Fiat relaunched a much slimmed down dealer network across China during late August, with less than 30 of the original 100 outlets still remaining. The new sales network has started off by importing three new models, the Grande Punto and Bravo from Italy, and the Linea from Turkey.