Shanghai Volkswagen Automotive Co Ltd, China's biggest car company, launched its latest Santana model in Kunming in Yunnan Province Wednesday, hoping the move will reinforce the company's leading position in China mainland's market amid keen competition.

Five models of the new sedan, called Santana 3000 Conqueror, will cost between 145,000 yuan (US$17,470) and 173,600 yuan.

Shanghai VW, the 50-50 joint venture between Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp and Germany-based Volkswagen AG, expects to sell more than 100,000 Santana 3000 Conqueror cars this year.

"We'll keep our top position in China by securing a 20 percent share in the car market in five years," said Chen Zhixin, Shanghai VW's managing director.

The maker of Polo, Passat and Gol sold the largest number of cars in China last year as a single automaker.

It sold 396,000 cars for a 32 percent year-on-year rise.

Shanghai VW now is facing more competition as its rivals are pushing aggressively to threaten its leading position.

In the mid-end market, the Elantra from Beijing Hyundai and the Excelle from Shanghai GM, SAIC's another 50-50 JV with world's largest automaker General Motors, are the major rivals to the Conqueror.

Shanghai GM sold 201,188 cars in China last year for a 81.6 percent year-on-year rise.

"The car's price is competitive in the mid-end car market," said Geoff Liu, an analyst of Automotive Resources Asia.

More than 770,000 units of Santana 2000, the predecessor of the Conqueror, have been sold in China since 1995.

The company said that they stopped manufacturing Santana 2000 at the end of January.

"Though we have stopped making Santana 2000, we won't drop the well-known Santana brand," said Chen.

(East Daily March 3, 2004)