China Close to Approving Plan to Relaunch Jeep Production

A plan to build Chrysler Group LLC's Jeep Cherokee SUV in Changsha, China, is close to being finalized, unnamed sources tell Bloomberg News.

Fiat SpA, which controls Chrysler, and Guangzhou Automobile Group Co. announced the plan in January. Chrysler assembled Jeeps in Beijing between 1985 and 2009.

The partners said earlier they plan to assemble Cherokees at the factory they opened earlier this year in Changsha. The facility, which currently assembles the slow-selling Fiat Viaggio, has initial capacity to make 140,000 vehicles per year.

Bloomberg says Fiat believes the aspirational Jeep brand would be more successful in China than the Italian company's mass-market models.