FCA aims at 6m-car target by 2018

Sergio Marchionne, CEO of Italian carmaker Fiat, said on Monday that the company's new production plans after merger with U.S. Chrysler could see an output of up to 6 million cars per year by 2018, local media reported. Fiat was set to deliver more than 4.5 million cars in 2014, but a six million target was "achievable" by 2018, Marchionne told the shareholders' annual meeting in the northern city of Turin, where the company was founded in 1899. There were "no more obstacles to the full integration of Chrysler, which was the culmination of a major industrial project launched in 2009," Marchionne was quoted as saying by financial newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore. The merger will be operational by the end of this year, he added. Fiat announced in January that it had gained full control of Chrysler after more than a year of negotiations with VEBA, the healthcare trust associated with the United Auto Workers (UAW) which owned the remaining 41.5 percent shares of Chrysler. The merged group will be named "Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA)" and will have headquarters in The Netherlands and tax residency in Britain. Marchionne also said on Monday that Fiat will hold just one more major meeting in Turin, after which it will move its assemblies to the The Netherlands.