Before settling down the plant location, Renault considered Guangzhou as an alternative, home to the Dongfeng Nissan passenger car plant.

But Wuhan Economic Development Zone and Wuhan city erased the debt of Renault's failed former joint venture in Hubei province, and freed Renault from the Sanjiang Renault Automotive Co, which was halted in 2004.

Renault S.A. President and CEO Carlos Ghosn said the Dongfeng Renault joint venture will leverage the advantage of the gold-triangle of Dongfeng, Renault and Nissan on Dec 16, 2013 at the news conference in Hubei province. [Hao Yan/chinadaily.com.cn]

Ghosn said in his speech that "I'd like to thank all the institutions at the local regional and state level, which have been instrumental to the approval process."

In 1993 Renault established a joint venture with Sanjiang Aerospace Group in Xiaogan, Hubei province. Renault had a 45 percent stake in the partnership, with Sanjiang holding 55 percent.

The State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission on May 21 approved the equity transfer from Sanjiang to Donfeng Motor Group. Dongfeng Motor Group acquired 55 percent equity interest in Sanjiang Renault, the interest held by Sanjiang, for a consideration of one yuan.

Sanjiang Renault then was renamed as Dongfeng Renault Automotive Co Ltd with a registered capital of $111.2 million. The Dongfeng Motor Group holds 55 percent equity interests in Dongfeng Renault, and Renault S.A.S holds 45 percent. Then the two companies injected capital and balanced the equity at the 50-50 ratio.

Dongfeng Motors' joint ventures

The Dongfeng Renault joint venture received approval on Dec 2 from the National Development and Reform Commission.

Renault forged an alliance with Nissan in 1999 and founded Renault-Nissan BV in 2002. The Japanese carmaker entered the joint venture with Dongfeng in 2003.

Dongfeng Motor now has six overseas partners, topping all Chinese carmakers in terms of the number of joint ventures. The company operates ventures with Nissan, Peugeot S.A., Volvo, Honda, Kia, and Yulon fromTaiwan.

Based in Wuhan, capital of Hubei province, Dongfeng Motor is China's second-largest carmaker in sales volume.

More Dongfeng Renault stories:

Dongfeng and Renault set up joint venture

Renault-Dongfeng joint venture gets green light

After eight years of talks, a Renault-Dongfeng agreement

Dongfeng Motor Q3 profit rises 39%

Renault's revenue down 11.8% in Q1