Collapsed British car firm MG Rover had been sold to Nanjing Automobile, administrators said, raising hopes of a limited return of production for Britain's last remaining volume carmaker.

Joint administrator Tony Lomas said Nanjing would begin to take control of Rover's assets and develop the company's plans for the future, which were as yet unspecified.

Trade unionists expressed disappointment that rival proposals from larger automaker the Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC), which they believed would save more jobs at Rover's central England factory, had been rejected.

Administrators eventually reached a deal with Nanjing after three months of trying to draw up a rescue package for Rover, which has produced classic models under the Jaguar, Mini and MG brands during its 100-year history.

PricewaterhouseCoopers had been holding talks with Nanjing, SAIC and British businessman David James over the sale of allor part of MG Rover.

Unions had been backing the SAIC bid as the best way of attracting new jobs to the Longbridge factory in Birmingham, central England, amid hopes that at least 1,600 research and development posts would be created. Nanjing Automobile is China's oldest carmaker, having been founded in Jiangsu Province in1947.

The manufacturer, a state-owned enterprise with approximately16,000 employees, is much smaller than SAIC, which produced 600,000 vehicles last year.

Under the deal brokered by PricewaterhouseCoopers, the assets of both Rover and its dedicated engine producer Powertrain have been sold to Nanjing.

(Shenzhen Daily July 25, 2005)