Italian automaker Fiat SpA said Monday it has not reached a deal with China's Nanjing Automobile Corp., denying weekend reports by Chinese media that the two companies had signed an agreement over their troubled car production joint venture.

Officials at the Turin-based company said that no deal had been signed and declined to comment further on a Sunday report by China's official Xinhua news agency that claimed the companies had agreed to invest an additional 3 billion yuan (US$400 million) each in the joint venture to respond to Fiat's demands that Nanjing ramp up production of its cars.

Nanjing Auto wasn't immediately available to comment.

The two sides are reportedly at odds over a Fiat engine tie-up with a rival Chinese company and because Nanjing Auto has delayed planned investment in the joint venture as it works to resuscitate the MG Rover Group.

Nanjing Auto, China's oldest car maker, bought bankrupt British automaker MG Rover in 2005. It inaugurated a US$362 million MG production line in the eastern Chinese city of Nanjing in March and has since started production at MG Rover's former plant in Britain.

Fiat wants to sell 300,000 cars in China by 2010. But its Nanjing joint venture produced just 31,300 cars last year.

As well as its partnership with Nanjing, Fiat, now Europe's fifth-biggest automaker by volume, has a trucks joint venture in China with Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp. and an engine tie up with Nanjing rival Chery Automobile.

Click for more photos

Italy's Fiat and China's Nanjing Auto plan to breathe new life into a
troubled joint venture, Nanjing Fiat, with an extra three billion yuan
(390 million dollars) investment, state media said Sunday.