Official release from Honda Worldwide:

Guangzhou Automobile Group and Honda Sign Agreement for Acura Business in China

July 18, 2013 – Guangzhou Automobile Group Co., Ltd. and Honda Motor Co., Ltd. today announced that on July 17, 2013, they signed a basic agreement to jointly conduct Acura business in China.

With the signing of the agreement, the two companies will begin discussing concrete plans toward a goal to begin local production of Acura brand vehicles at Guangqi Honda Automobile Co., Ltd. (GHAC) in 2016.

In 1998, Guangzhou Automobile Group and Honda jointly established GHAC, a joint venture company for the production and sales of Honda products in China, and have continued a close and cooperative relationship for the last 15 years. Striving to achieve further growth in the rapidly growing luxury car market in China, the two companies agreed to establish a new cooperative relationship.

Two companies now will discuss concrete plans for the realizing high quality of the globally-proven Acura brand vehicles through local production and a focus on satisfying customers in China.

<Acura brand in Mainland China>

The Acura brand was first introduced in the U.S. in 1986. Since the start of import sales of Acura products in China in September 2006, the Acura product lineup in China has expanded in stages, and a total of six sedan and SUV models are now being sold in China, including MDX, RDX, ILX and RLX. From the start of sales in China, the Acura brand has been offering one of the best warranty coverage plans among luxury vehicle brands available in China with a 4-year or 100,000 km warranty period and free maintenance service, providing advanced technology, products and service to customers in China.

At the Auto Shanghai 2013 in April of this year, the Acura Concept SUV-X was exhibited, a concept vehicle for a small SUV developed primarily for the Chinese market. Acura announced plans to begin local production and sales in China of a mass-production model based on this concept vehicle in about next three years.

[Source: Honda Worldwide]