Volkswagen brand CEO Ralf Brandstaetter will take charge of the VW Group's China operations and Skoda boss Thomas Schaefer will move to Brandstaetter's role at VW, according to German press reports.
Brandstaetter, 53, will move to Beijing for the new role, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported on Wednesday. He will be promoted to VW's management board, emphasizing the importance of China as VW Group's most important market, the paper said.
VW's current China boss, Stephan Woellenstein, will be given a new as-yet unidentified role with the automaker, reports said last month.
China accounts for 40 percent of VW Group's volume, but sales in the world's biggest market are well below targets, with demand for VW's ID full-electric models models much weaker than expected due to the microchip crisis and competition from Tesla and local electric brands such as Nio and Xpeng.
Brandstaetter, a VW lifer currently based at the automaker's headquarters in Wolfsburg, Germany, will have to move to Beijing for his new role because coronavirus restrictions make travel between Germany and China difficult, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung said.