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- First “8” generation Peugeot car to be launched in China

- Joint venture with PSA Peugeot Citroën and the Chinese group DFM

- Peugeot sales increased by 44% in 2009

- Designed specifically for Chinese market

Jean-Marc Gales, Director General of Automobile Peugeot, unveiled the new Peugeot 408 in Beijing to around 300 Chinese journalists and more than 700 network representatives this week.

The Peugeot 408 marks a further step in Peugeot’s objective of increasing its sales in the world’s foremost automobile market - China.

Despite only being present in the Chinese market for 5 years, Peugeot sold over 410, 000 vehicles in 2009. This equates to a 44% increase over 2008.

Following on from the strong performance

in the M1 segment of the 307 hatchback and the 307 saloon, of which 3,522,800 have been produced worldwide, Peugeot is now starting the next chapter of its objective to increase sales in the Chinese market with the introduction of its new DF Peugeot 408.

The luxurious new Peugeot 408 is designed for the Chinese market and will further reinforce Dong Feng Peugeot's product range in the M1 segment that currently accounts

for over 45 % of the total market.

The new DF Peugeot 408 should enable Peugeot to increase its sales volumes by over 30% in 2010, compared with 2009, and thereby to grow at twice the forecast

pace of the market.

The 408 saloon’s architecture has been designed and developed jointly by Peugeot's Styling teams in Europe and China and meets three key objectives to embody the Marque's latest style, guarantee maximum safety and offer unrivalled interior space.

The 408 name follows the Marque's traditional naming logic. The figure 4 refers to the size of the car (4.68 m) and its positioning in the medium-luxury family saloon segment. The 0 in the middle signifies that it belongs to the Peugeot Marque, while the 8 expresses the vehicle generation.

With this name, the 408 naturally falls into place within the current Peugeot range and becomes the forerunner of the 8 series, the latest generation vehicles to be launched on the Chinese market.

The Dong Feng Peugeot 408 is the result of the joint venture set up between PSA Peugeot Citroën and the Chinese group DFM. The car is being produced at the Wuhan plant in Hubei province in China. It is positioned to become one of the market's benchmark

vehicles with a full-year sales objective of 100,000 units.