Germany-based vehicle producer BMW Group announced on Monday that Olaf Kastner would replace Karsten Engel to oversee the group's business in China, where the company's sales growth has been slowing, Shanghai-based news portal jiemian.com reported Monday.
Olaf Kastner is the former CEO of BMW Brilliance Automotive, a joint venture of BMW Group and Brilliance China Automotive Holdings, which handles the production, sales and after-sales services for BMW vehicles. He will assume his new position from December 1.
Kastner joined BMW Group in 1998 and took the position at the joint venture of BMW Group in China in 2009. In the industry, he is considered an expert on the Chinese market.
Under Kastner's lead, capacity at BMW Brilliance's production base in Shenyang, capital of Northeast China's Liaoning Province, rose 10 times in the 10-year period that ended in 2013, according to jiemian.com.
The change at the top followed a deterioration in BMW's performance in China. Sales of BMW's brand passenger cars saw a year-on-year slide of 5.5 percent in May, its first decline in China in the past decade, news portal sina.com.cn reported in June.
BMW saw a year-on-year sales volume growth of only 2 percent in China during the first three quarters while Mercedes-Benz, a strong rival of BMW in China, achieved year-on-year growth of 30.9 percent over the same period, news portal huanqiu.com reported in October.
