Volvo Car Corporation has agreed to transfer its (50%)interest in NedCar to Mitsubishi Motors Corporation as of 30 March 2001.

Mitsubishi Motors Corporation Takashi Sonobe, president and CEO of Mitsubishi Motors Corporation, said: "The acquisition of this factory is a basis for our future joint production of the 'Z car' with DaimlerChrysler.

“NedCar is and will remain an important basis for our European operation."

NedCar is the Dutch car plant Mitsubishi has been operating with Volvo on a joint basis to build the Carisma, Space Star, and Volvo S and V40 ranges.

According to NedCar president Chris Dewulf, this share transfer will make no difference to the NedCar organization.

"NedCar will continue to do what we were already doing, and that is the assembly and delivery of cars and components of top quality, at agreed competitive prices and at the agreed time to our customers with optimal flexibility.

“Our customers will remain the same until some time in 2004. The only significant change is that we will have a new customer, DaimlerChrysler. As stated earlier, the so-called 'Z-car project', one of the major joint projects in the Mitsubishi Motors Corporation/ DaimlerChrysler alliance, is to be built at NedCar with an annual volume of approximately 250,000 cars".