Gasgoo.com (Shanghai November 6) - Recently, reports have been circulating in the Chinese media that Infiniti has decided to halt exports to China. In response to these reports, Infiniti officially made a statement denying these allegations, the Beijing Morning Post reported today.
In an official statement on the issue, the manufacturer's public relations department explained that its export operations to China are running normally, and that any reductions to export volumes for its different models were part of day to day business. "Temporarily halting imports would actually be good news for dealerships," an Infiniti dealer admitted, adding that political tensions between China and Japan had severely affected the brand's sales in the country. According to the dealer, Infiniti dealerships in China had nearly two months of vehicles still left in inventory.
Similar reports regarding Lexus have also appeared in the past, until a statement on the manufacturer's official Chinese website clarified the situation.
Japanese manufacturers have indeed been hard hit by recent anti-Japanese sentiment in China. In a recent study conducted by the China Automobile Dealers Association, eight manufacturers were found to have automobile inventory levels of over 2.5 points. Five of the eight were Japanese manufacturers or Sino-Japanese joint ventures: Infiniti, Lexus, Acura, FAW Toyota and Guangqi Honda. As a result, several Japanese companies have decided to reduce their export volumes to China.
