Many major car companies are shifting their attitudes from
viewing China purely as an untapped sales market but also as an
important manufacturing, outsourcing, exporting and regional
research base. Such a mood swing has been highlighted by the
efforts made by the country at the Shanghai Automobile and
Technology Exhibition, which opened to the public on Sunday.
Rick Wagoner, CEO of General Motors (GM), announced in Shanghai
that the company would double its production capacity in China by
2010.
Business insiders revealed that this trend would widen, as the
country's low-labor cost and skilled workforce would become
increasingly attractive to auto makers.
Ford China chairman Cheng Meiwei, told Xinhua at the exhibition
that Ford was making China its major global outsourcing center, and
that China-made spare parts would be dispatched to Ford vehicle
assembly lines worldwide.
The GM's Chevrolet sedans follow Ford's example in using many
spare parts from China for their US cars.
Customs statistics place at US$11.5 billion the amount of
automotive spare parts, accessories and auto bodies exported by
China in 2006, standing at four billion dollars higher than
industry imports and creating the nation's first-ever surplus in
this trade sector.
However, the move to China has come westwards as well as
eastwards. Japan's Honda has already set up a sedan production
center in Guangzhou to replace its former Japan factory. The
Guangzhou branch will be tasked with manufacturing Honda cars for
sales in Europe.
Yin Tongyao, general manager of China's domestic auto maker
Chery, gave a domestic perspective by revealing that several
multinationals desired to use Chery factories to manufacture their
own cars for sales abroad.
However, should one gain the impression that China only serves
the purpose of a manufacturing powerhouse, one of the exhibits at
the Shanghai car show will burst this bubble. A new Buick GM
concept car appeared at the show, having been the brain-child of US
and Chinese staff at a joint technology center headed up by GM's US
and China wings.?
(Xinhua News Agency April 23, 2007)