China still far away from global auto export giant

Shanghai, November 11 (Gasgoo.com) China's auto exports have posted a year-on-year increase of 94% annually on average since its entry in the WTO in late 2001, said Zhou Shijie, vice director general of Department of Mechanic, Electronic and Hi-Tech Industry, Ministry of Commerce. But he also pointed out that China’s auto exports are still in the early stage, having a large gap with the global exports giant, xinhuanet.com said.

China had an auto output of 8.88 million units in 2007, becoming the third largest country for auto manufacturing and the second largest new car sales market in the world. However, China is still not a powerful auto manufacturing country, Zhou said at a conference on auto export market policy promotion.

Zhou noted that auto exports have become an important drive for China's industrial development and foreign trade when completed vehicles exports passed 600,000 units in 2007. With the fast growth, some problems have also occurred to be solved urgently, especially the complicated market change, and it is difficult for export companies to master the vehicle entry policy in foreign countries.

Data released by China Customs showed that China auto exports (including completely knocked-down kits) posted 34.9% increase year on year for the first three quarters of 2008 to 557,736 units, including around 200,000 sedans.

Because of the financial crisis, completed vehicles exports posted significant growth declines for the second half of this year, which is expected to be at 700,000 units for the whole year, a 20% increase over 2007.

China's Ministry of Commerce will take nine measures to support domestic auto companies to enlarge auto exports, Zhou disclosed.