COLOMBIA: Chinese-made automobiles take Colombia by storm

They are small, they are cheap and they are taking Colombia by storm - some 2,000 Chinese-made cars are already on the streets since they went on sale at the beginning of this year and importers believe that number could more than quadruple by the end of 2007. Strong investments in technology and design mean that Chinese-manufactured vehicles can enter the Latin America market at prices more than 30 per cent cheaper than the nearest competitor. But the importers say their Latin customers are also getting high quality vehicles. "With the cars we have demonstrated to the people that the technology that drives the Chinese vehicles is of a high quality, and what's more they are allied with reputable brands like Mitsubishi and Nissan," Director of the Chinese-Colombian Motor Trade group, Diego Gomez, said. The Chinese economy is currently growing at 9 percent annually and as well as ferociously scouring Latin America for everything from oil to lumber, the booming Asian giant is also looking to export its goods to the region. Recently Beijing, which two years ago pledged 100 billion U.S. dollars (USD) in investments for several South American countries, said it also wants to bankroll road, port and railroad developments to assist trade, which last year totalled at 50 billion USD according to Chinese trade data. Cars have been one of the first products off the ships, and industry experts say Chinese motor brands such as Chana, Chery and Hafey will soon be household names throughout South America. All three brands are currently being sold in Colombia and Ecuador, where they are selling like hotcakes. "This year more than anything we have reached a sales level of 2,000 units but we are going to close with 4,000 units. The next year we hope to make more sales, approximately 8,000 to 9,000 cars in Colombia," Gomez said. However industry experts warn that the Chinese-manufactured vehicles are more "disposable" than other more expensive brands from Europe and the United States, and this does not fit in with the Latin mentality that a car should stay on the road for decades. "In Latin culture a car is bought for the long term. In Latin culture when you buy a television you buy it one time in your life up until it blows up and you have to buy another one. Now one has to begin to think that the Chinese-made product is a product that is disposable - in inverted commas - that doesn't have to last as long as an expensive car, a car that will run for many years. One thing is the disposable market, and the other market is this idea of (a product) that lasts for a long time, that is going to make a lot of work for the Chinese-made car," automobile industry expert Jorge Cortes said. But this has not seemed to have affected sales so far, which has encouraged the Chinese motor brands to even set their eyes on the world's biggest automobile consumer - the United States - a move that has some experts saying that soon Chinese manufacturers could come to compete with the automobile heavyweights from Europe, the U.S. and Japan.

ITN Source | November 2, 2006

Tags:. .term. .strong. .reached. .economy. .culture