PARIS, March 16 (Reuters) - French carmaker Renault plans to move more production of its Clio mini to Turkey, company and industry sources told Reuters, in what is likely to be the start of a domestic manufacturing phase-out for the brand's top-selling model.
The plan extends a shift to Renault's plant in Bursa, south of Istanbul, that has proved politically sensitive in the past. Earlier proposals for a complete production transfer were scrapped in 2010 after Chief Executive Carlos Ghosn was summoned for a dressing-down by Nicolas Sarkozy, then France's president.
Some 94 percent of the fifth-generation Clios will be built at Bursa and Novo Mesto, Slovenia, according to one industry source, with the remaining 6 percent assembled at Flins, west of Paris - and probably only for the first 2-3 years of peak sales.
A Renault spokesman said no formal decision had been made on Clio production. "The work is still ongoing," he said. "Any comment on it would be incomplete, erroneous and premature." (Reporting by Laurence Frost Editing by Ingrid Melander)