China's Russian assembly plan for cars is almost completely blocked.
Shanghai Securities News learned yesterday: Russia's Av Tout company has completely stopped assembling Chinese cars. As China’s largest assembly partner in Russia, Aftator announced that the road for China’s automobile assembly in Russia to enjoy duty-free assembly is difficult to sustain. In the future, it must find new ways of competition and development.
It is understood that after the suspension of the assembly of China's own-brand cars, Aftator has recently stopped assembling a light truck business in China. Aftator said that it stopped assembling because Russia implemented the Euro III emission standard this year.
It is understood that since January 1, 2008, Russia has implemented Euro III emission standards. Previously, China's commercial vehicle companies have passed the Euro II emission certification, so these three-year Euro II product certifications will be invalidated next year. But half a year ago, Avtator’s move to stop the assembly was difficult to understand.
People in the industry believe that Aftator’s complete suspension of assembly of Chinese cars is intended to ease the relationship with the relevant departments and strive for their own interests. This was because the Federation of Russian Automobile Manufacturers had previously demanded that “the cancellation of the zero-tariff concession on assembly imports enjoyed by the Avanti company of Kaliningrad in order to stop unfair competitionâ€. In 2008, Russia's Av Tout company reduced its assembly quotas, and thus paid more attention to the production of more profitable BMWs, Hummer and other luxury cars.
Yesterday, Xi Jingli Chairman Zhu Jingcheng told the Shanghai Securities News, “Since only Aftator has enjoyed auto tariff concessions in Russia, after it stopped assembling Chinese cars, it will have a great impact on Chinese cars in the local area. Price competitiveness."
Chinese auto companies have been hit harder than this. On July 1st, the Russian government implemented a revised system of imported automobiles and cancelled the simplification of the automobile quality inspections of non-GNE members. China and India have become the most affected countries. Previously, China’s auto products only needed 11 tests to be exported to Russia, but today it has passed 55 inspections, and most companies cannot meet this requirement.
With the “July 1st deadline†and Aftato’s total suspension of assembly of Chinese cars, China’s auto performance in the first five months was quite unsatisfactory. According to the statistics of the Automotive Manufacturers Committee of the European Trade Association of Russia: From January to May this year, although the sales of foreign brand cars in the Russian market surged by 48% to 855,472 units, the overall sales of Chinese automobiles declined sharply, with a total sales of 18,353 units. The market share was In 2007, 3% fell to 2%.
However, according to the reporter’s understanding, a number of Chinese auto companies are still optimistic about the Russian market and are looking for other ways to enter the Russian market.
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