French carmaker Renault has no plans to merge with Japanese partner Nissan or increase its stake in the company, Renault's chairman was quoted as saying in a German paper on Saturday.
"Renault is a French automaker with global ambitions based in Paris. Nissan is a Japanese carmaker with global ambitions based in Tokyo. It makes no sense to bring these two centres together," Louis Schweitzer said in an interview to Die Welt.
"Also, a car expresses the culture of a company we should respect these differences. They are also our strengths," he said.
He said there were no plans for Renault to raise its 44 percent stake in Nissan or for Nissan to increase its 15 percent holding in his company.
Renault said earlier this month that strong sales of its Megane range, improved profitability outside western Europe and tighter co-operation with Nissan would further boost its net profit and lift operating profit margins, assuming no major exchange rate shifts.
Nissan contributed 1.895 billion euros ($2.37 billion) to the French carmaker's bottomline last year and plans to shift its accounting year into line with Renault from January 2005.
Schweitzer said there was no basis to rumours that the company was interested in Sweden's Volvo, a unit of Ford Motor Co.
He said the times when one could sell cars without rebates were over but the situation would not get as bad in Europe as in the United States.
Schweitzer said Renault was working intensively on the idea of a sports utility vehicle and that it made sense to build it at a site in Korea to serve the Asian market.
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