(February 22, 2011) Jaguar Land Rover is in talks with top Chinese SUV maker Great Wall Motor Co. about a potential China partnership, two executives told Reuters News on Monday.

JLR, a unit of India's Tata Motors Ltd., is among a very few top-line global brands that do not have manufacturing arrangements in China, where rivals BMW, Audi, Mercedes-Benz and others already have racked up stellar sales.

Great Wall Chairman Wei Jianjun met with JLR's senior executives during a visit to China.

The JLR unit, which Tata bought from Ford in 2008 for $2.3 billion, was initially losing money, but it made a turnaround in the last few quarters and posted a profit of 19.58 billion rupees (about $434 million) for the three months ending in December.

China was the unit's fastest growing market in 2010, according to JLR Chief Financial Officer Ken Gregor. He said sales in the country jumped 95 percent during the year to 26,114 units.

A tie-up in China, the world's top auto market, would help solidify JLR's longer term growth, industry insiders said.