Nissan Prez Sez Chinese Auto Market Growth Will Continue

TOKYO, October 21, 2003; Kazuhiro Shimamura writing for Dow Jones reported that Nissan Motor Co.'s President Carlos Ghosn said Tuesday the auto market in China can sustain robust growth for at least several more years.

"There is no reason that (growth) is going to stop in the foreseeable future," Ghosn told the Tokyo International Automotive Conference.

"The foreseeable future is four, five years down the road," he added.

Fast growing markets often get quickly saturated as manufacturers flood in, but the Chinese market still provides better profit opportunities than many other markets "if you do your job well" by putting effective management in charge, Ghosn said.

The auto market is often "more regulated by capacity than market demand, and China will not be the exception," Ghosn said.

"It's likely that, at a certain point in time, you are going to have overcapacity" in China, but given the market's growth, oversupply won't be a problem in the near future, Ghosn said.

To maintain healthy growth, China will need to change its regulation of providing foreign automakers access to its market only through joint ventures, he added.