China's car companies accelerate the "sea" export super best historical level

"This year, China's auto exports will exceed the best period in history, and during the 12th Five-Year Plan period, auto exports will also increase significantly. When China has become the world's largest automobile production and sales country, the time has come to go overseas." Dong Yang, executive vice president of the Automobile Industry Association, said so.

Affected by the adjustment period of China's auto market this year, the share of self-owned brands in the domestic market continues to decline, while overseas markets have won unexpected gains. In the first eight months of this year, China’s auto exports reached 546,000 units, an increase of 54% year-on-year. Higher than the growth rate of the domestic automobile market over the same period.

Moreover, after the automobile exports stepped out of the impact of the 2008 financial crisis, the overseas development strategy of China's self-owned brand auto companies also developed from the initial general trade to the overseas production stage. A group of forerunners represented by Chery, Jianghuai, etc. have already begun to accelerate the establishment of overseas plants and realize the localization of production.

However, although China’s auto exports are entering a new stage of rapid growth, they are still in the initial stage and there is an urgent need to resolve the tendency of domestic competition in international competition in auto exports.

The arrival of overseas opportunities This year, the overseas exports of China's auto industry began to gradually emerge from the financial crisis since 2008, and restored to the highest level in history.

China’s auto exports have started from 20,000 since the accession to the WTO at the end of 2001. By 2008, auto exports have reached the best level of 640,000 vehicles. However, due to the financial crisis, the rapid growth of previous years has also ended. The year-on-year increase was only 9.4%.

In 2009, with the production and sales volume of more than 13 million vehicles in China, it became the world's largest auto market. At the same time, due to the sluggish global auto demand and the increasing policy thresholds of export target countries, auto exports have fallen sharply, and the export volume has only reached 37. Ten thousand vehicles, a year-on-year drop of 45%. Chery, the Great Wall, Geely and so on have entered the lowest point of overseas market development.

From the data of the first eight months of this year, China’s auto exports have already come out of the financial crisis. In the first eight months, the export volume reached 546,000 vehicles. There is no suspense over the best level of history in 2008.

Experts from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers once stated that the main reasons for the rapid growth of China’s auto export market are the recovery of foreign economies on the one hand, and the result of efforts by Chinese domestic auto companies on the other.

In May this year, following the Geely Automobile Shareholders' Meeting, Geely Automobile CEO Gui Shengyue stated that due to the gradual recovery of the global economy, the company’s auto export sales in 2011 may reach 40,000-50,000 vehicles, which is higher than the 20,555 vehicles in 2010. . Chery Automobile also stated at the beginning of this year that its overseas exports this year will exceed the historically highest 130,000, while last year's exports were more than 90,000.

Dong Yang said: "According to estimates, last year China's auto exports accounted for only 3% of the total output, which is far from enough. The proportion of exports in total production should be higher. At the end of the Twelfth Five-Year Plan, this figure should reach 10%. 15% is normal."

At present, China’s auto exports are still at a stage of development, with a very large upside in the future. Germany now accounts for 75% of total output, 65% in Japan, 50% in Korea, and even more than 20% in Brazil. Our country exported 580,000 vehicles last year, accounting for only about 3% of the total output.

Yin Mingshan, chairman of Lifan Motors, said at the Global Automobile Forum in Chengdu that China’s auto exports accounted for only 2% of the world’s auto trade, and that China’s own cars, including joint venture brands, accounted for only 5% of sales.

Entering the Overseas Production Stage An executive from a self-owned brand car company once told reporters that as China's auto industry goes global, it will surely follow the trend and pursue sales, and will embark on a long-term plan to build factories overseas. stage.

At present, most of the overseas strategies of China's auto companies still remain at the stage of general trade. Zhang Luxun, deputy director of the Department of Mechanical and Electrical Industry at the Ministry of Commerce, said at the Global Automotive Forum that most of the auto exports go through a single-goods trade and there are few factories overseas. In addition, the majority of overseas marketing networks rely on distributors in the import sector. We do not have our own brand yet.

However, after the export scale reaches a certain stage, in order to avoid heavy tariffs and meet the local government's localized production requirements, China's auto companies are accelerating the pace of overseas construction to avoid the negative impact of trade friction on auto exports.

Brazil is a major export market for cars in China. Recently, the Brazilian government demanded that the sales of cars in the Brazilian market must have a production rate of more than 65% for the parts of the country. For imported cars that do not meet the localization targets, the average tax rate for industrial products tax (IPI) payable will increase. This measure will increase the price of imported cars in the Brazilian market by 25% to 28%.

Chery Automobile has established a foundation for its wholly-owned factory in Brazil. It will invest 400 million U.S. dollars in the next few years to build a production line with an annual output of 150,000 cars. The project will be completed and put into operation in September 2013.

In addition, the SHC Group, the agency agency for Jianghuai Automotive Brazil, announced that it will invest US$510 million to build a plant in Brazil to produce economical cars.

However, at present, most of the overseas factories of China's auto companies are mainly overseas assembly and have not achieved real overseas local production.

At present, Chery has 16 CKD (all parts and components) assembly plants under construction or completed overseas; Great Wall Motor has established KD assembly plants in 12 countries including Russia and Indonesia. By 2015, the number of overseas KD factories will reach 24; Geely has set up CKD assembly plants in Russia, Ukraine, Indonesia and Malaysia and other countries and regions, and will build more assembly plants in the future.

Industry insiders believe that overseas factories will gradually be assembled from pure CKD parts to truly localized production. Overseas factories will also shift from the assembly auto show to the center of production base, sales, and brand communication. This big trend will not change.

Urgently needed to solve international competition domestication The overseas strategy of China's auto industry has been started and it will have sufficient potential in the future. However, if we truly want to achieve a breakthrough in scale, we will have a place in the global market. At present, the most pressing issue that needs to be resolved is the internalization of international competition.

In the process of overseas strategic development, the stricter technical barriers in developed countries are objectively existing factors, and they are unavoidable facts. This requires us to constantly improve our own technological capabilities. However, at this stage, it is the Chinese companies that have influenced the overseas strategy of the Chinese auto industry.

Lu Luxun said that at present, China's auto industry has too many exporters. About 500 auto companies have exported 580,000 vehicles and have been dispersed to more than 200 countries and regions in the world. This undoubtedly has seriously affected the quality of the Chinese auto industry's overseas markets.

Lu Jianhui, deputy general manager of Chery Automobile, said more directly at the Global Automotive Forum. He said that as long as one product is sold well in a certain country, it will be the same product made in China in a few months, and the price will be much lower.

This disorderly competition has seriously affected the brand image of Chinese automobiles in overseas markets, and the order of export has become a problem that must be solved for China’s auto overseas strategy.

Lu Luxun said that in order to regulate the export order from two aspects, some measures will be taken this year and next, and the standards for the export qualifications of some enterprises will be appropriately raised. In 2007, by extending the industry access system to the export link, the total number of auto vehicle exporters decreased from 1,500 to 500.

On the basis of improving the existing conditions for export qualifications, we will further strengthen the construction of overseas marketing networks. If there are vicious competitions outside the enterprise, they will cancel their qualifications in the next year.

In the second aspect, it is hoped that through the power of the market, the pace of mergers and reorganizations will be accelerated and the main body of export enterprises will be optimized.