Great Wall Motors promises not to raise car prices

Shanghai. March 4 (Gasgoo.com) – China biggest SUV maker Great Wall Motors Company said it would not raise car prices to pass on the raising material costs, state media Xinhua News agency reported today.

 

The recent steel price increases have lead to a 500-600 yuan increases on the costs Great Wall made vehicles. “To deal with this steel price situation, we will seek to reduce production costs by practicing lean production principles. We will tighten cost control and eliminate material wastes,” said Li Xinyuan, director of Lean Production Department of Great Wall Motors.

"Currently the industry average of car manufactures makes use of half steel raw materials and there is a lot of room for improvement on more efficient use of steel materials,” said L Yuanmei, general manager of the second manufacturing plant of Great Wall Motors.

 

Separately, China’s largest home-growth automaker Chery announced yesterday that it has no plan to raise car prices in the near future.

 

Li Feng, deputy general manager of Chery Auto said his company has been well prepared for this challenge. “We’ve stabilized our car prices early on and we have no plan to raise car prices in the near future.”

 

 Besides Great Wall and Chery, other Chinese automakers also indicated that they have no plan to raise car prices for the time being.

 

"The raise of raw material costs is testing our profit-making capability," said Fu Shoujie, deputy general manager of Guangzhou Honda. "We will try our best to minimize the impact of steel prices on our car prices by improving our cost management."

Takehiko Kikuchi, managing director of Dongfeng Nissan Passenger Vehicle Company said his company would not pass the soaring material costs on to car consumers.

 

"The situation we have today is that raw material costs are raising while car prices are falling. This will make competition between car makers even harder," Kikuchi said. "Our key to survive the difficult situation is to try our best to absorb the impact of the climbing costs."