Japan's Mitsubishi Motors Corp said on Friday it has formally signed a contract for a previously announced tie-up with France's Peugeot-Citroen in electric vehicles.

The two carmakers had agreed in March to cooperate in developing and marketing electric cars.

Under the contract, Mitsubishi Motors will supply electric cars to Peugeot-Citroen.

Peugeot-Citroen will start selling the cars in Europe under its brand name by the end of 2010, Mitsubishi Motors said in a statement.

A Peugeot-Citroen spokesman said it aims to sell 25,000 of the vehicles annually.

Mitsubishi Motors is making an aggressive push into electric vehicles. It started selling electric cars in Japan earlier this year.

Shares of Peugeot-Citroen were up 7.1 percent as of 5:37 a.m. EDT. Prior to the announcement, Mitsubishi Motor's shares closed down 2.4 percent in Tokyo at 161 yen.

(Reporting by Nobuhiro Kubo in Tokyo and Gilles Guillaume in Paris; Editing by Michael Watson)

Japan