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order, the rural Anhui based Chery ranks quite low. While the more established stateowned FAW and SAIC enjoy favourable ties with the Chinese central government and partnership with major global brands like GM and VW, with much of China’ s domestic market closed to Chery.
As local governments of economic centres such as Beijing, Shanghai and Changchun have direct ownership in BAIC, SAIC and FAW respectively, independent car makers like Chery have to expand to markets outside of China.
Without the privilege that some of the bigger Chinese
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players enjoy, Chery has been focusing on growing the export market since the early days of its inception in 1997.
The company is headed by Yin Tongyue, who grew up in a poor farming village in Anhui before working for FAW and VW as an engineer. In 1995, he returned to his birth place of Anhui to setup Chery and turned it into an exporter of 200,000 plus cars last year. Chery’ s exports have surged by an average of 163 per cent annually since 2001.
Like Chery, Geely is privately owned. The company
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recently made headlines by acquiring ailing Swedish car maker Volvo Cars from Ford. Last year, Geely exported 100,300 cars, mainly to Russia, Algeria, Iraq, Iran and Chile.
Meanwhile, 4x4 specialist Great Wall Motors is making inroads into the Asia Pacific region.
In Australia, Great Wall Wingle has overtaken the Isuzu D-Max in the pick-up truck segment, while the Haval is an increasingly common sight, usually driven by tradesmen. In terms of total vehicle
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sales in Australia, Great Wall ended 2012 just 5,000 cars shy from Suzuki, but ahead of Jeep.
In February last year, Great Wall Motor( GWM) became the first Chinese car maker to open a plant in Europe. GWM’ s plant in Lovech, Bulgaria has the capacity to supply up to 50,000 cars per year to the European market.
The Bulgarian plant is currently producing Wingle( Steed) pick-up, Hover H5 SUV and C10 hatchback. The C20R crossover, and Haval H6 SUV will follow in the future.
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