By Fester:
About the only major manufactured goods that the US consumes in large quantities that has not been exposed to direct competition from Chinese imports has been consumer aircraft and automobiles. With the sale of the Hummer brand, and more importantly, the Hummer distribution and dealer network to Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Company Ltd, this will not be the case.
GM will continue to manufacture current Hummer models in the US, but the real value of the sale to Sichuan is the access to the dealer network, American designers and significant tacit knowledge. The H3 variants and the factory are a minor consideration in the deal for Sichuan.
I think Sichuan will begin introducing decent, medium and low end cars that can compete with Kia and Suzuki initially but undercut them on price in the next couple of years. After that, as learning by doing occurs and management capacity builds up, the mercantile policies of the Chinese government will close off most of the Chinese internal market from foreign competition while decent and cheap Chinese cars will be branded through Hummer and sold in the US and other G-7 nations.
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