The venture agreement signed in December will last for three decades unless terminated or extended, Jaguar said in a statement Friday.

An earlier media report indicated that venture would draw an investment of 17.5 billion yuan.

Jaguar Land Rover and Chery this week announced they will form a joint venture to build the U.K. luxury carmaker's models in China. The government, which hasn't approved the venture, requires overseas automakers to work with Chinese companies to produce domestically and avoid the nation's 25 percent import duty.

Surging sales of the new Range Rover Evoque compact SUV and Jaguar cars in China helped parent Tata Motors deliver record third-quarter profit. Last month, the company reported net income in the three months of 2011 rose 41 percent to $665 million, (4.2 billion yuan).

Sales of Jaguar and Land Rover vehicles rose 37 percent to 86,322 units in the quarter, after Jaguar deliveries more than quadrupled in China, and doubled in Russia, according to a Tata Motors presentation on its website.
Jaguar Land Rover said on March 13 that it was adding as many as 1,000 jobs and moving to three-shift, 24-hour production at its Halewood plant near Liverpool, England, to meet surging demand for its luxury SUV models.

The Evoque, named the North American truck of the year in Detroit in January, accounted for 30 percent of Land Rover's retail sales in the quarter ended Dec. 31, according to a company presentation.