The new China plant will initially produce the Ford Edge but will have capacity for five other models.

Late to the Chinese party, Ford Motor Co. is playing a fast-paced game of catch-up. The Detroit maker’s latest move comes with the opening of a new, $760 million assembly plant in Hangzhou, about 100 miles southwest of Shanghai.

The new facility will bring to 1.2 million Ford’s rated annual capacity in China, and could position the company as the market’s fourth-largest manufacturer. But the Hangzhou plant opens just as the Chinese car market begins to cool, along with the rest of the economy, for the first time in more than a decade.

Nonetheless, Ford CEO Mark Fields, who was on hand for the Tuesday plant dedication, was optimistic, declaring, “This world-class facility will help us accelerate the delivery of high-quality, innovative products to our customers in China.”

The new Hangzhou plant initially will produce a version of the recently updated Ford Edge crossover – which is going global for the first time.  Ultimately, the factory will have the capacity to assemble as many as six different models simultaneously.

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The Hangzhou plant will bring to five the number of assembly plants Ford operates in China, along with an engine line and a transmission plant. Its opening comes just six weeks after Ford opened Chongqing 2, which increased its capacity by a third, to 600,000 vehicles annually. Earlier this month it said it will invest $600 million in the original Chongqing plant to add yet another 350,000 units of capacity.

A Chinese Ford Focus.

With the addition of the Hangzhou plant, that will bring to 1.2 million Ford’s total Chinese output, putting it fourth behind Volkswagen AG, General Motors and Nissan Motor Co. – but ahead of Hyundai Motor Co., which has 1.05 million units of capacity in China.

Automakers from around the world have been racing to build more plants in the world’s most populous nation. At its peak, Chinese car sales nearly doubled annually, and now lead the U.S. market. But sales growth is expected to slip into single-digit territory this year, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. For the first two months of 2015, demand rose 8.7% compared to 11% during January-February 2014.

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Ford was one of the later manufacturers to enter China – in sharp contrast to cross-town rival GM which initially took sharp criticism for investing in a new plant in Shanghai 16 years ago. Ford has been struggling to catch up in recent years, investing heavily in plants like the Chongqing and Hangzhou facilities, and adding a variety of new models, including the Edge and the latest version of the Focus.

Those moves have been paying off. Ford sold 191,983 during the first two months of this year, a 14.6% increase well ahead of the overall market’s pace of growth.

The figures include a small but growing number of Lincolns. The long-struggling luxury brand launched a network of 10 dealerships in China late last year and is betting that the country could soon become its largest market, helping fuel a broader revival.

All told, Ford hopes to have 15 different product lines on sale in China by the end of this year.

The market is expected to be a critical part of Ford’s global growth strategy. Under Fields, who became CEO last July, the maker intends to boost sales by more than half by the end of the decade, to 9.4 million.

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