The opening ceremony took place in a hotel in Changchun with approximately 200 people in attendance from FAW, Mazda, and dealers. The Deputy Governor of Jinlin Province, Niu Hai Jun, and Deputy Mayor in Chungchun, Zhang An Shun, joined in the ceremony as guests and Kiyoshi Ozaki, Mazda’s senior executive officer in charge of its China business and Satoshi Tachikake, executive officer, attended from Mazda.

The management team of FMSC was announced in the ceremony. Noriaki Yamada, Deputy General Manager of Mazda’s China Business Division, was appointed President, and Yu Hongjiang from FCC became Vice President. An De Wu, Vice President of FAW and Kiyoshi Ozaki, Mazda’s senior managing executive officer, became Chairman and Vice Chairman, respectively.

“This joint venture is a landmark cooperative business undertaking between FAW group and Mazda, “ said An De Wu at the ceremony. “Over the next few years, Mazda’s products will lead trends in the Chinese automotive market and will be a leader, providing fun-to-drive experiences. We would like to establish a strong Mazda brand through FAW’s ample resources and experience in conjunction with Mazda’s cutting-edge marketing and sales know-how. I am confident that this joint venture will be a big success.”

“Mazda continues to construct a system to achieve our mid-term goal of producing and selling 300,000 units in the Chinese market by 2010,” said Mr. Kiyoshi Ozaki. “This new joint venture is a significant step forward for Mazda’s expansion in China and is one of our major strategies to achieve our targets. The new President, Noriaki Yamada, is a Mazda veteran in sales, marketing, and parts business and I am confident that he will strongly lead the company.”

Noriaki Yamada stated, “In setting up the new national sales company, Mazda will provide customer-first service in all activities to win high customer satisfaction and strive at attain a top-level of quality sales network.”

FMSC is the national sales company to distribute Mazda-branded products in the Chinese market. It started with 100 million yuan (1.4 billion Japanese yen) and FCC, Mazda, and FAW took stakes of 70 percent, 25 percent and 5 percent, respectively. There are currently 127 employees.

Mazda has shown explosive growth in production and sales since it started full-scale operation in the Chinese market in May 2001. Mazda’s China sales were 80,075 units in 2003 (up 248 percent from the previous year) and 97,132 units in 2004 (up 21 percent).