A high-level delegation of executives from Shanghai Automobile Industry Corp is in the UK to discuss the integration of local operations with Nanjing Automobile.

SAIC took over Nanjing late last year in a deal that has delayed Nanjing's planned resumption of low scale production at the former MG Rover plant at Longbridge.

No cars have been assembled there since MG Rover crashed in April 2005, even though Nanjing staged a re-opening ceremony in May after getting control of the rights to the MG name and tooling.

Its plans to resume limited production of MG sports cars have been delayed since the end of last year, partly because of the poor quality of imported components.

The SAIC delegation will meet Nanjing managers at Longbridge and visit SAIC's vehicle development base at Leamington Spa, said an official close to Nanjing.

The executives will decide on the carmaker's future model policy for Europe and determine which models will be assembled at Longbridge.

Nanjing has so far not spelled out its long term plans for the plant, much of which is being redeveloped, beyond promising to build limited volumes of the MG TF.

One executive was optimistic a decision on future models and production volumes would result from the visit.

"Now is a fairly crucial time in the process," he said. Eleanor de la Haye, Nanjing's Longbridge spokeswoman, said three models could be built at the plant.

SAIC president Chen Hong said recently the company aimed to restore production of original MG models at Long-bridge soon and planned new MG models for Europe.

"The British business will become SAIC's platform for overseas markets and a window for SAIC to Europe," he said. n BMW said global sales of cars fell by 1.6 per cent to 92,629 units in January. The German carmaker sold 77,156 units of its main BMW-branded cars but sales of Mini rose by 13.3 per cent to 15,432.