China's passenger vehicle exports rise by 43% in October

China’s vehicle exports have shown double-digit growth lately. As of October, total vehicle exports increased by 24.3% year-on-year, and by 27.46% year-to-date. The 43% annual growth of passenger vehicle exports during the month is the largest on record. China exported 60,741 passenger vehicles in October, raising the total number of units exported in the first 10 months of the year to 547,366.
Passenger vehicle exports are the main area of growth for Chinese domestic automakers, as they face strong competition in the domestic market, mostly from international players, which almost crowd out the local Chinese brands. Currently, most Chinese models are exported as fully built units, although some are exported as knock-down kits for assembly at plants in the importing countries.
Chery plans to begin full production at a plant in Brazil by the end of 2013. This would be the first full-production plant of a Chinese automaker in a foreign country. On the other hand, Geely has also been pushing for foreign bases. Both Geely and Chery have assembly plants in countries outside of China, most of them with local partners.
Leading automakers in the order of export growth rate are Chery, Geely, Lifan, and Great Wall, followed by several other market players. Chinese passenger and commercial vehicles are exported mainly to developing markets that are not huge volume destinations and, therefore, are not of high priority to international automakers. The biggest markets for Chinese vehicles in the first nine months of the year were Algeria, Russia, Iraq, Iran, Chile, Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, Ukraine, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. (November 22, 2012)