The state parent of Dongfeng Motor Group Co, China's third-biggest automaker, will invest 10 billion yuan ($1.33 billion) through 2010 to develop its own brand of cars, the official Shanghai Securities News reported on Thursday.

Dongfeng Motor Corp, which makes cars in tie-ups with Nissan Motor, Honda Motor and PSA Peugeot Citroen, is building facilities to make cars carrying its own badge, with designed annual capacity of 330,000 units, the paper said, citing the company's vice president, Fan Zhong.

Dongfeng-brand sedans will account for 20 percent of the company's car output by 2010, up from 4 percent in 2005, he was quoted as saying.

After making foreign-brand cars via tie-ups with overseas partners, many of China's domestic manufacturers are setting out on an own-brand strategy, hoping to wean themselves off reliance on foreign technology.

FAW Group Corp, a China partner of Volkswagen AG and Toyota Motor Corp, plans to spend 13 billion yuan in the next eight years to develop cars under its own brand.

SAIC Motor Corp, which runs ventures with General Motors Corp and Volkswagen, announced a massive bond issue plan earlier in the year to fund the development of its own-brand cars -- including the construction of facilities able to make 270,000 sedans and 320,000 engines per year -- at an estimated cost of 21.4 billion yuan.

Guangzhou Honda, the Japanese auto maker's tie-up with state-run Guangzhou Automobile Group, also unveiled a 2 billion yuan plan earlier in the month to develop non-Honda branded sedans, becoming the first foreign car venture to develop cars bearing its own badge.

Dongfeng Motor, unlike SAIC Motor which plans to roll out sedans under its own brand in 2009, will handle the development of own-brand vehicles at the parent company, rather than at the group's listed unit.

Dongfeng executives have told Reuters that the group would transfer assets for the production of own-brand vehicles to the listed unit, Dongfeng Motor Group, only after the business becomes profitable.

($1=7.515 Yuan)