China's Chery eyes to lead international small car market

With securing the first place in the domestic small car market, China's Chery Automobile Company eyes the overseas market. Cooperation talks with Maruti and Tata have been underway, which may enable the Chery QQ and A1 models to wedge in the competitive and growing market.

Minicars already account for 75% of the whole market, totaling to 1.125-million and it is yet growing fast, attracting global carmakers to launch models or to invest here. "Only to go overseas could we be called the real leader of the small car segments," said Yin Tongyao, general manager of Chery.

Chery internationalized since 2003, a highly competitive year for Chinese automakers ever since. During this year, Chery successfully exported its cars into Syria, Algeria, Libya, Egypt and other foreign markets and later set up joint ventures in Venezuela, Pakistan, Iran and so on, by means of completely knock down (CKD).

Also, Chery's OEM deal with Chrysler is still under negotiation, under which agreement Chery cars will enter the North American and west European market in upcoming months.

Chery was founded a decade ago but is already regarded as a leader for the home-grown automakers, with an obvious dominance in the small car segment.