Encouraged by last year's robust sales and anticipating a long-term sustainable development of the China market, Bosch Group, a global supplier of automotive technology and services, yesterday said it would pump another 850 million euros into China.

"The positive business development encourages Bosch to invest more in China," said Peter Pang, president of Bosch (China) Investment Ltd. "By the end of 2007, we invested 1 billion euros in China and will invest another 850 million euros from 2008 to 2010."

In 2007, the German group saw a consolidated sales of 18.3 billion yuan (1.6 billion euros) in China, a 41 percent growth compared with the previous year. Its global sales in the same period rose 8 percent to 46 billion euros.

"In the future, we will further expand our manufacturing and R&D activities in China to support our local customers and play an important role as a supplier and partner to the development of China's automotive industry," Pang said at Auto China 2008.

Last year, China's auto industry maintained its third position with a production of 8.88 million units and a growth of 22 percent year-on-year. The total sales stood at 8.79 million units in 2007.

(China Daily April 23, 2008)