Global demand rises for domestic-brand vehicles

New energy auto shipments boom as quality, technology increase

With the sound of a siren, a ship carrying 3,000 of a domestic brand's new energy vehicles left a wharf in Guangzhou's Nansha district in Guangdong province one morning in late March, bound for a port in Southeast Asia.

It was the largest single shipment of such vehicles exported by a single domestic brand in South China since the beginning of the year, according to Guangzhou Customs.

Zhang Bojia, deputy director of the international logistics project team at China Capital Logistics Co Ltd, which handles new energy car shipments, said the company's exports from different mainland ports have continued to rise this year.

That is no accident, he said.

"China's independent brands have been exploring overseas markets in recent years, and their business strategy has shifted from focusing mainly on the domestic market to placing equal emphasis on both domestic and global markets," Zhang said.

"China's domestic auto brands have won recognition in many foreign markets, therefore, demand for export orders has also increased. This is in response to continuous improvements in domestic automobiles' product strength, sophisticated configurations and a favorable cost-performance ratio," he said.

Domestic new energy vehicle manufacturers have taken full advantage of the trends in information, digitalization, networking and intelligent development, and continuously increased their technological innovation efforts to achieve repeated product upgrades, he said.

Not only have they increased their influence in domestic markets, but also connected with global markets, bringing more intelligent and green products to overseas consumers, he added.

China sold 679,000 new energy vehicles abroad in 2022, up 1.2 times year-on-year, according to Customs officials. Significant growth trends have accelerated this year, they said.

Guangdong province's exports of electric passenger vehicles increased by 15.4 times year-on-year in the first two months.

Officials said at least two vessels carrying vehicles have been leaving Nansha Port in Guangzhou every week for foreign ports.

At Shenzhen's Yantian Port, Customs declaration procedures were recently completed for 150 BYD new energy cars destined for Oslo, Norway, according to officials.

More than 3.6 billion yuan ($524.1 million) in new energy vehicles from the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone were sold to other nations and regions in the first two months, Customs officials said. The city's exports of new energy vehicles registered year-on-year growth of 2,300 percent in the January-February period, officials said, as COVID-19 control regulations were optimized.

Nansha Automobile Port, at the mouth of the Pearl River, has become the largest cluster of terminals for roll-on, roll-off specialty ships for wheeled cargo in South China, with seven 10,000-metric-ton dedicated berths for vehicle shipments.

The terminal clusters for the cargo ships include a commercial vehicle storage yard covering nearly 1.6 million square meters along its 1.8 kilometers of wharf coastline.

Nansha Automobile Port has established a total of seven automobile export routes, covering multiple countries in the Middle East, Europe, South America and Southeast Asia, according to Lu Chunrong, manager of the Business Development Department of Nansha Automobile Port. That has led more than 10 automobile brands, including Chevrolet, Chang'an, Geely and Chery, to ship their vehicles to the rest of the world from Nansha, Lu said.

To meet growing demand from the vehicle export business, the port will add Hong Kong and Macao berthing and international transit services to help further promote the export business of domestic new energy vehicles from Nansha in the coming months, Lu said.

Guangzhou Customs has further simplified procedures for vehicle exports this year to boost the development of the country's new energy and intelligent vehicle industries, said Li Lixiang, an official with Nansha Customs.

"Quick and convenient Customs clearance procedures, including a 24-hour reservation Customs clearance service, for the export of complete vehicles and core parts have been implemented to encourage domestic vehicle enterprises to increase their presence in global markets," he said.

As of March 21, the number of cars declared for export in the Nansha area of China (Guangdong) Pilot Free Trade Zone so far this year had exceeded 39,000, a year-on-year increase of over 1.6 times, according to Customs.

Most of the vehicles have been exported to more than 10 countries and regions, including Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Thailand, Guangzhou Customs said.