The export value has doubled in half a year

"Now one phrase is popular: In overseas markets, Chinese cars are not afraid of foreigners and they are afraid of 'other people knowing what happened'." Zhang Hao's voice just fell and the audience laughed. This is an episode of the "China International Forum on Auto Industry" held in Tianjin on the afternoon of September 3.

As an official of the Ministry of Commerce in charge of the export of Chinese mechanical and electrical products, Zhang Wei, Director of the Department of Mechanical and Electrical Industry of the Ministry of Commerce, is deeply puzzled and helpless that Chinese independent brand automobiles have long been pursuing "competition and competition" in overseas markets. . He called for: "It is imperative to change the growth of auto exports."

A statistic from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers shows that in 2009, 13.6 million vehicles were produced and sold in China, accounting for nearly one-fifth of the 62 million vehicles produced and sold in the world that year; when it became a veritable global automobile production and sales country, at the same time as China’s auto exports. The volume is only 370,700 units (including complete vehicles and various types of chassis). From a ratio point of view, it is less than 0.7% of the total number of global automobile production and sales.

Despite China's auto export "close to worry", Zhang Hao is still full of confidence in the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan". "It will take five years to achieve a one-and-a-half-fold increase in the exports of auto parts, vehicles and parts, reaching 85 billion yuan, an average annual increase of more than 20%. By 2020, the export volume of automobiles and parts will account for More than 10% of the world's total trade in automotive products."

"Keep the roots"

“The extensive growth mode of China’s auto exports has continued for seven years. Although it has grown rapidly, it has not retained its roots.” Zhang Jian told reporters during the forum that China’s exports of automotive products, including parts and components, totaled 21.9 billion last year, but It was completed by 20,000 business entities. On average, each enterprise’s export volume was only US$800,000.

Zhang Jian believes that the reality behind the “only overall quantity and no individual quality” of Chinese auto exports in overseas markets is that local autos and parts and components companies lag behind in export strategy and philosophy, so that they do not effectively enter the local market. "To establish a scientific and standardized export order."

Take the Russian market as an example. In 2003, only 77 cars were exported from China to Russia. By 2007, this figure had soared to 108,000, and the number of exporting companies had soared from the first one or two to 120. In that year, Russia became the largest exporter of Chinese cars.

After just two years, only 7,400 Chinese cars were exported to Russia in 2009. "Now Chinese cars are basically out of Russia." When talking about the status quo of China's automobile exports to Russia, Zhang Hao was not unnerving. This was "amazingly similar" to the lesson learned from the fact that China's motorcycle exports to Vietnam "only three years of scenery" was completely withdrawn 10 years ago.

The reason is that in order to prevent imported cars from impacting the local market, Russia has started brewing a policy aimed at “raising the local production of foreign brands in Russia” since 2008. At present, this policy has been adopted by the Russian government and will continue to be launched. Implementation.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin recently stated that due to the economic recovery and rising demand, the Russian government plans to increase import vehicle taxes to encourage international automakers to increase domestic auto production. In the coming years, Russia will once again raise the import tariffs on cars and trucks on the basis of the original 30%.

According to reports from local Russian media, the Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade has started to propose that any foreign brand car that intends to enter Russia in the future needs to be able to build at least 300,000 cars and 200,000 engines or transmissions in four years. It also includes the construction of a stamping line and the establishment of an automobile design agency in the area. For this reason, each company should invest at least 500 million U.S. dollars.

According to an analyst familiar with the local Russian market, the introduction of the above policy may have completely blocked the traditional path of Chinese autos’ occupation of the Russian market by means of “car import” alone. At present, China has Chery, Great Wall, BYD, Geely, Lifan, Dongfeng and many other vehicle manufacturers exporting cars to Russia. However, with the increase of Russian tariffs and non-tariff barriers, these enterprises have turned their export focus to markets outside Russia.

Going out of the puzzle

Regarding the export chaos in China, Zhang Hao believes that there are lags in the export strategy of enterprises, a serious lag in export orders, slow product quality improvement, lag in after-sales service system construction, lagging behind in brand cultivation, and the lack of synchronization between parts and vehicle R&D. the reason.

In addition, the target markets for China’s auto exports are also extremely fragmented. They cover Asia, Africa, Latin America and nearly 190 countries and regions in the Middle East. Among them, the “low-to-mid end market demand” for these developing countries and regions is the main target for Chinese auto exports. The direction. The number of Chinese auto exports in the developed countries such as the European Union, the United States, and Japan is almost negligible.

In 2006, Brilliance Automotive had signed a long-term agency agreement with local European dealers and was ambitious to plan to export 158,000 Zhonghua cars to the EU market within five years. However, the subsequent “collision door” incident made Brilliance’s overseas exports a big deal. Meet resistance. In 2009, Brilliance sold only 46 units of Benz and 181 Junjie at the local level, and subsequently re-entered the EU plan due to the withdrawal of agents.

"As the world's largest exporter, many of our products' exports account for more than 10%, 20, or more of the world's production and sales, and we account for 50% and 80% of the world's total for laptops and mobile phones, respectively. If our car exports can reach 10% or more, this may be an advantage (China's auto industry)." Zhang Jian believes that China's auto export prospects are broad, but there are still many problems with specific operations.

At the beginning of entering the Russian market, “a considerable number of our vehicles were entered as second-hand vehicles. Customs clearance through grey channels also led to high levels of concern for the other party. In the future, exports should also take the formal channels.” Zhang Hao believes.

In addition, in the way of competition in overseas markets, Chinese auto companies appear to have no rules. “Once one finds that exporting a car to a country is profitable, the company will go all the way.” In Zhang’s eyes, few other countries like China are “thousands of troops” in exporting automotive products. “You will find that the volume of exports will grow within a short period of time. The business entities will increase rapidly. Then, the unit price will rapidly decline, and the profits will be reduced to paper. Finally, they will start selling drawings and start cutting corners.”

Because of the vicious competition caused by disorderly export, exporters are squeezing down prices, and Chinese autos are very likely to become the “advancements” of local auto companies. Coupled with the lack of their own after-sales service systems, Chinese autos will often put a market potential in the short term. Huge overseas markets "kill".

Zhang Hao said that at present, the five ministries and commissions of the country have already clarified the corresponding methods and require that they start from the source of the production enterprises and strengthen export in the aspects of production, marketing, and circulation. At present, it is steadily advancing the construction of the national auto and auto parts export base and accelerating the construction of the base's public service platform. In the areas of information, training, product certification, inspection, research and development, etc.

“We must seize the current favorable opportunity to go out in a safe and positive manner and adopt cooperation, joint ventures, mergers and acquisitions, and other means to enhance our ability to innovate.” Zhang Hao said that this is the basis for China’s auto exports.