Nissan pursues growth in China

Nissan plans to aggressively pursue growth in China, according to a published report.

Carmakers suffered a major blow this year when their supply chains were disrupted by the 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan on March 11. Since then, many automakers have recovered, with Toyota recently announcing it will resume full capacity ahead of schedule.

Reuters reports that Japan-based Nissan will invest roughly $7.8 billion in the world's second-biggest economy by the end of 2015 as it works to increase its market share in what has quickly become the biggest automobile market in the world.

Dongfeng Motor Co., which is Nissan's joint venture with Dongfeng Motor Group, hopes to sell 2.3 million vehicles this year. That would mark a significant increase from the 1.3 million vehicles the company sold in China in 2010, industry analysts assert. Nissan chief executive Carlos Ghosn said the move will help the carmaker to increase its global market share.

"We used to be extremely dependent on one market," he said. "The development of the Chinese market for us is making Nissan less dependent on one region, or one country, or one market."