April 15, 2008 -- Chang'an International Corporation [CHANA], a Chongqing-based automobile manufacturer, plans to establish an R&D center in Japan this April.

"The plan on the establishment of an R&D center in Japan is still under preparation," Qin Zhou, the spokesman of CHANA Automobile International Corporation, told Emerging China. "As for now, there is a team of experts from both Chinese and Japanese sides working on this project."

Zhou estimated that the center will hold its opening ceremony by this April; Details like the amount of investments and the chosen location will be open to the public by that time, according to Zhou.

"This is the second overseas research center besides Torino of Italy," Zhou added. "From my point of view, the center would be probably duplicated as the Torino city's research center mode, with the experts and technicians from both sides to promote the domestic or joint venture products."

So far, the company has 3 R&D centers: Chongqing municipality, Shanghai and Torino city of Italy.

"After the building of the second overseas research center, the company could benefit from the local resources and talents more, in order to develop different brands and innovative products," Xuegui Zhao, an analyst from Shanghai-based Guosen Securities, told Emerging China.

Meanwhile, the company held its first large-scale job fair in Tokyo, Japan in March. They tried to attract more of local talents in this field for the new R&D center, as reported by Chongqing news.

The recruitment has attracted the attention of many experts and auto manufacturers, such as Nissan Honda, and some other Japanese auto enterprises, reported by Chongqing news.

As of now, the production capacity of the company is one million automobiles and one million engines, according to Chongqing news.

There will include 1.2 million cars developed in-house to tap the European and US markets, said Fangsheng Ji, chief engineer of the CHANA Automobile Engineering Research Institute, at a seminar.

"Even with the big progress, the private auto enterprises are still lagging behind the joint venture [automobile] companies in the domestic market," said Guosen Securities's Zhao.

The local auto enterprises need to improve the quality of the products and the sales services to catch up with the trend, according to Zhao.

The company will focus more on the products developed in-house with energy-saving and environment-friendly characteristics, Ji added.