Mixed News for Ford

Ford Motor Company's main Chinese join venture expects its sales to climb sharply this year, while former subsidiary, Visteon Corp., announced it expects to reduce the amount of business done with Ford over the next two years.

Ford, the second-largest U.S. auto maker last year sold 61,013 vehicles from its Changan joint venture, up 41%, from 2004.

The venture is pinning its hopes on two new models to continue to boost sales. The Focus, which was introduced last fall, has been extremely popular, with dealers reporting that demand for the model has often out-weighed their supply. The other model, the Mazda3, will go on sale this month.

Ford plans on investing $1 billion in China in the upcoming years and is currently expanding a plant in Chongqing to give it the capacity to make 200,000 cars a year. Along with Mazda and Changan Auto, another factory is in the works for the city of Nanjing, with a planned capacity of 160,000.

In related news, auto supplier, Visteon Corp., has announced that it expects to reduce the amount of business with its former parent company over the next two years as it plans to move more production overseas.

In 2005, 47% of Visteon's business was with Ford, but the company expects that to drop to 36% by 2008, while business with Asian automakers plans to increase.

Visteon will also continue to move production out of higher-priced markets like the U.S. and Europe to Asia and other lower cost locations.