Ford to Increase Exports to China
 

Ford Motor Co. is planning a significant increase in the number of vehicles it exports to China as part of a new trade pact that takes advantage of the favorable currency rate for building cars and trucks in North America and shipping them for sale overseas.

The trade agreement signed Monday in Washington hinges on reducing some environmental and safety standards that have made it difficult in the past to make North American-built vehicles conform with Chinese regulations, Ford officials said. Ford will start exporting about 10,000 vehicles a year in 2009 but did not say Monday which nameplates would be sold in China, where it currently assembles a variety of small cars for the domestic market. It currently exports about 1,000 vehicles made in North America for sale in China.

"Currency is significantly more friendly today," said Stephen Biegun, Ford's vice president for international governmental affairs. "And we don't have to engineer the same kind of significant design changes as we did before."

Ford also will begin supplying transmission components and parts this year to its passenger car joint venture in China -- Changan Ford Mazda Automobile Co., Ltd.

The new export figures pale in comparison to the number made by the company in China. Ford Motor China recorded sales of 90,791 passenger cars and commercial vehicles in the first quarter of 2008, a 47 percent increase over the same period last year.