The Chinese government is in the process of shaping one of the largest car manufacturers in the world. According to local media reports, the two state companies Changan and Dongfeng are about to merge. Both wrote to the stock exchange in duty on Sunday that there were plans for restructuring with other corporate groups of the central state, but did not name the other companies. Dongfeng’s share price in Hong Kong increased more than a quarter, the titles of Changan won in Shenzhen almost five percent. The two companies are largely unknown outside of China, but are among the largest car manufacturers within the People’s Republic. According to Dongfeng, he sold almost 2.5 million cars last year, Changan came to almost 2.7 million. However, there are significant parts of this on joint ventures with foreign manufacturers. Dongfeng cooperates, for example, with Nissan, Honda and Peugeot-Citroën, Changan with Ford and Mazda. Common to companies would come to almost 5.2 million vehicles and would be the largest car manufacturer China in front of the electric car manufacturer. In the global ranking, the company, which would be subordinate to the Beijing central government, would be in sixth place directly behind the European Stellis Group, immediately before Ford. Just like many western car manufacturers with which they have joint ventures, the rapid triumphal march of electric cars have not seen. Last year, Zhang Yuzhou, head of the Commission for the Control and Administration of State Assets, who is responsible for Dongfeng and Changan, publicly criticized this. The state -owned companies are not fast enough in the development of electric cars, warned Zhang and announced a review. Dongongfeng and Changan are subject to most other state car manufacturers in the People’s Republic directly to the Zhang’s Commission, which is responsible for large state -owned companies. This could “force the company to force companies,” said the Shanghaier car consultant and former Chrysler manager Bill Russo. Many other large cities such as Shanghai, Beijing or Guangzhou have their own car manufacturers. According to Russeo, the central government cannot have an immediate influence on this. The restructuring, if it was implemented, would be a “big step” towards consolidation and very important for the Chinese auto industry, wrote the Morgan Stanley investment bank. Dongfeng. Last year, Changan said that it sold a total of around 730,000 electric and hybrid cars. This corresponds to a proportion of just more than a quarter of the company’s total sales. On the entire Chinese car market, the so -called New Energy Vehicles (NEV) stood for more than two fifths of the cars sold. Dongfeng is even more difficult with the transformation and sold just under 400,000 NEV last year, less than a sixth of the total sales. Both companies are also pushing to Europe. Changan, which is based in the metropolis of Chongqing, has been running a design center in Munich for a long time and announced a sales start in Europe six months ago. With Klaus Zyciora, the former chief designer of the Volkswagen Group, is a German Global design director of the company. Dongfeng from Wuhan has been represented in Europe for a long time with his Voyah electric brand and was flirting with a factory in Italy, which was never realized, and at China’s car market there is an extremely hard competition and great overcapacity. Experts assume that the factories in the country could produce well more than 40 million vehicles. Last year, however, only around 25 million cars were sold in Germany, almost six million were exported. For many years, observers have been expecting consolidation that could be achieved through bankruptcy of inferior companies or mergers. Occasionally, start-ups give up, some foreign manufacturers have withdrawn. So far, there is no large -scale cleanup.
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