Tokyo, Jan 24 (IANS): Carlos Ghosn, the ousted Nissan Motor chairman who is currently in a Tokyo jail for alleged financial misconduct, on Thursday resigned as President and CEO of Renault, hours before the company was slated to dismiss him.

Ghosn's resignation announcement was made by the French Minister of Economy and Finance Bruno Le Maire, who is currently at the World Economic Forum in Davos, cabinet sources told Efe news.

Le Maire confirmed the resignation - which was expected since early this week - shortly before the Renault Board of Directors held a meeting at its headquarters on the outskirts of Paris to decide on the new team.

The first challenge of the new Renault team will be to restore confidence with Nissan owing to the crisis generated by Ghosn's arrest in Tokyo on November 19 which has highlighted the friction in the alliance that also includes Mitsubishi.

Nissan is in a difficult situation because Renault holds a 43 per cent stake in it but the Japanese company only owns 15 per cent of the French company's stock with no voting rights.

Discontent in the alliance was further exacerbated by the fact that the main shareholder of Renault is the French government which has 15.01 per cent of the shares and 22 per cent of the voting rights.