After Beijing eliminated most incentives for auto purchases last December, demand for small and compact cars has not kept pace with the still-hot luxury car market.

In China, Changan Ford Mazda Automobile Co. sells passenger vehicles while Jiangling Motors Co. sells commercial trucks. Ford also imports the Ford Edge and Escape into China.

In July, Changan Ford Mazda sold 18,303 passenger vehicles while Jiangling Motors sold 14,009 commercial vehicles. The remaining eight models were sold in China through imports.

In the first seven months, the two joint ventures sold 306,830 units in China, up 13 percent from a year earlier.

Changan Ford Mazda builds the Ford Mondeo, Focus, Fiesta and S-Max, while Jiangling Motors produces the Ford Transit as well as Jiangling-brand trucks, pickups and SUVs.

Ford, while seeking to accelerate its growth in China, said it's encountering pricing pressure as the auto market slows.

"In the last three or four months, the auto industry clearly is not growing at the rate it was last year or even in the first quarter," Joe Hinrichs, Ford's group vice president and Asia chief, said this week at a JP Morgan auto conference in Detroit. "We have seen some pricing pressure."

Ford is spending $1.6 billion to build four factories in China, where it plans to triple its lineup by offering 15 models by mid-decade.

The automaker also plans to double the number of Chinese dealerships by 2015.

Ford, still dependent on the U.S. and Europe for most sales and profits, has 2.7 percent of the passenger-vehicle market in China through June, trailing General Motors' 10 percent, according to J.D. Power & Associates.
Ford expects the Chinese government to eventually take measures to stimulate auto sales, Hinrichs said. Ford's sales are up 13 percent to 14 percent so far this year, outpacing the market's 5 percent growth rate, Hinrichs said.
"The growth rate is not nearly as aggressive" in China as it has been, Hinrichs said.
Ford expects Chinese industrywide sales to increase by 5 percent to 10 percent annually over the next five years, Hinrichs said. Ford's costs in China are equal to competitors', he said.

"We're not seeing an inability to compete in China," Hinrichs said.
Ford CEO Alan Mulally said in June that growth in Asia will help increase the automaker's annual global sales by 50 percent to 8 million vehicles by 2015.