Nissan to invest about 60b yuan in China to boost sales

BEIJING - Japanese automaker Nissan and its Chinese partner Monday announced a 60 billion yuan ($9.5 billion) investment plan.

Nissan and Dongfeng Group plan to sell 2.6 million vehicles annually in China by 2022, up about 70 percent from last year's record sales of 1.52 million cars.

Over 40 new models will go into production in the next five years, with about half of them electric.

Electric vehicles are key to the five-year investment, which could account for about 30 percent of the joint venture's total sales by 2022.

China is the world's largest auto market, with auto sales climbing 3 percent to 29 million in 2017. Sales and production of new energy vehicles both rose more than 50 percent last year.

China plans to lift the share of smart cars among the country's total new vehicles to 50 percent by 2020.