The Chinese Automotive Industry. Competitiveness in Comparison with Global Competitors

Table of contents

Acronyms and Abbreviations

List of Figures

List of Tables

1 Introduction

2 History of the Chinese Automotive Industry
The First Stage of Development
Governmental Discontentment and Policy Measures of the 1990s
The Second Stage of Development
Period after the Great Recession of 2008
Fostering of New Energy Vehicles and the Rise of Private Companies
Current Structure of the Chinese Automotive Industry
Component Suppliers Operating in the Chinese Automotive Market

3 The Special Role of Joint Ventures and Spillovers
The Theory behind Spillovers
Determinants of FDI Spillovers
Actual Strength of Spillovers in China
Actual Strength of Spillover Effects on Productivity

4 The Infant Industry Argument
Theory Behind the Infant Industry Argument
Infant Industry Argument applied to the Chinese Automotive Industry
Infant Industry Protection with Local Monopolies
Evaluating the Protection of the Chinese Automotive Industry

5 Assessing the Competitiveness of the Chinese Automotive Industry
Exports as a Measure for Competitiveness
Empirical Findings
Comparison with Global Competitors

6 Conclusion and Outlook

References

Appendix

Acronyms and Abbreviations

Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten

List of Figures

Figure 1 China´s annual automobile production from 1999 to 2017. (Source: Own representation based on International Organization of Motor Vehicle Manufacturers OICA)

Figure 2 Annual production volume of new energy vehicles in China from 2013 to 2016 by type (Source: Representation of Statista based on CAAM 2017)

Figure 3 Infant industry protection with monopoly (Source: Own representation)

Figure 4 Infant industry protection after achieving a competitive average cost curve (Source: Own representation)

Figure 5 Global Export market share indices for different product groups of the Chinese automotive industry from 2002 to 2017 (Source: Own representation based on UN COMTRADE database)

Figure 6 Global Export market shares (EXMS) for the automotive industry from China, USA, Germany, and Japan between 2002 and 2017 (Source: Own representation based on UN COMTRADE database)

Figure 7 Global Export market shares (EXMS) for automobile components from China, USA, Germany, and Japan between 2002 and 2017 (Source: Own representation based on UN COMTRADE database)

Figure A1 Global Export market shares (EXMS) and export market shares which only regard exports to WTO high-income countries for the Chinese Automotive industry from 2002 to 2017 (Source: Own representation based on UN COMTRADE database)

Figure A2 Global Export market shares (EXMS) and export market shares which only regard exports to WTO high-income countries for Chinese Automobiles from 2002 to 2017 (Source: Own representation based on UN COMTRADE database)

Figure A3 Global Export market shares (EXMS) and export market shares which only regard exports to WTO high-income countries for Chinese passenger cars from 2002 to 2017 (Source: Own representation based on UN COMTRADE database)

Figure A4 Global Export market shares (EXMS) and export market shares which only regard exports to WTO high-income countries for Chinese automobile components from 2002 to 2017 (Source: Own representation based on UN COMTRADE database)

Figure A5 Global Export market shares (EXMS) for passenger cars from China, USA, Germany, and Japan between 2002 and 2017 (Source: Own representation based on UN COMTRADE database)

List of Tables

Table A1 Containment of HS-codes 8701 to 8709 (Source: Own representation based on The World Bank)

1 Introduction

Since the beginning of economic reforms in China, protection, Joint Ventures, and Foreign Direct Investment played a significant role in the Chinese economic policy to promote industrial development. This is also the case for one of the global most important industries; the automotive industry. The automotive industry is a pillar industry with a vast number of linkages throughout the economy and plays a major role in driving China`s economic growth and in ensuring employment. The Chinese government followed the idea of an infant industry protection argument and imposed tariffs and quotas on automobiles and automobile components to promote the development of the automotive industry. Further, the policymakers strived for spillovers originating from foreign Joint Venture partners and Foreign Direct Investment.

Like other Chinese industries, the automotive industry experienced massive growth over the last four decades, making China, since 2008, the economy with the largest automobile output globally, surpassing Germany, the US, and Japan. However, there does not exist a single Chinese automobile brand, which can sell more than a few of its Chinese branded cars in the markets of developed countries. This situation raises some questions about the real strength and competitiveness of the Chinese automotive industry.

Furthermore, automobiles can include more than 10 000 parts and components, and in terms of value-added 66 percent to 75 percent of the vehicle content is bought by the vehicle manufacturers from their suppliers (Holweg and Pil, 2004). Consequently, investigating the automotive industry does not mean to focus on automobile manufacturers alone and this bachelor thesis will also focus substantially on component suppliers.

The following will answer the question: Did China develop a competitive domestic automotive industry? Therefore, the rest of the bachelor thesis is structured as follows: The next section will give an overview of the history and the current market structure of the Chinese automotive industry. Section three contains a literature review of the theory and the empiricism of spillover effects originating from Joint Ventures with foreign enterprises and Foreign Direct Investment. Subsequently, in section three, the related literature is applied on the case of the Chinese automotive industry. The fourth section presents an application of the infant industry protection argument on the Chinese automotive industry. Section five includes an analysis of trade data in order to access the competitiveness of the Chinese automotive industry. Afterward, there will be a conclusion and an outlook of the possible future developments of the Chinese automotive industry.

2 History of the Chinese Automotive Industry

China has undergone various major changes throughout the last century. After the end of the Japanese occupation in 1945 and the end of the civil war in 1949, China transformed under the leadership of Mao Zedong to a socialist country with a planned economy. Until the death of Mao Zedong in 1976 and the takeover of Deng Xiaoping in 1978 the country and the economy suffered by virtue of political instabilities and the severe leadership of Mao, including the Great Leap Forward accompanied by the Great Famine and the Cultural Revolution. Until the reforms of Deng, there had been only a few automobile manufacturers operating with a little output. After 1978, unprecedented growth of automobile output has started, which lasts until today. Since prior to the start of the reforms the automobile output was negligible, the following will focus on the development of the Chinese automotive industry from 1978 onwards.

Furthermore, the beginning of reforms in 1978 and Chinas accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001 were two major events in the history of the Chinese automotive industry. Therefore, one can divide its history into two stages. The first stage of development lasted from 1978 until the entry of China into the WTO in December 2001 and the second stage of development started in 2002 and lasts until today.

The First Stage of Development

After the takeover of Deng Xiaoping in 1978, China remained a planned economy with only allowing some features of a market economy. However, the Chinese economy benefitted from political stability and a leadership, which regarded economic growth as a major challenge (Anderson, 2012).

The governmental strategy in order to establish a viable domestic automotive industry was to impose tremendously high import tariffs of up to 200 percent and strict import quotas to protect the domestic automotive industry from import competition (Gu, 2014). Further, Chinese policymakers endeavored to attract western Multinational Enterprises (MNE) to form Joint Ventures (JV) with Chinese State-Owned Enterprises (SOE) to benefit from foreign investment and foreign expertise (Anderson, 2012). Therefore, first JVs were formed between the American Motors Corporation, which owned at this time the brand Jeep, and Beijing Automotive Industry Co. in 1983, and between Volkswagen and the Shanghai Automotive Industry Company (SAIC) in 1985. Later PSA Peugeot-Citroen formed another JV and the Japanese automakers Daihatsu and Suzuki sold licenses to Chinese automobile manufacturers.

Historically, China always had been critical towards foreign influences, and the decision to promote the automotive industry substantially with the help of foreigners was never without concerns. Therefore, Chinese policymakers imposed specific requirements and restrictions for foreign partners to ensure that Chinese enterprises benefit and do not get harmed. Most importantly, the automotive sector experienced shareholder restrictions which obligate the Chinese partner of a JV to hold 50 percent of the JV. Foreign automotive enterprises were not allowed to hold more than 50 percent of a JV or to enter the Chinese market as a wholly foreign owned enterprise (WFOE). (Anderson, 2012)

The new political stability, the engagement of foreign automotive enterprises, excessive import tariffs, and import quotas led to a growth of automobile output throughout the 1980s. Especially the output of commercial vehicles such as light trucks grew substantially. Moreover, the number of automobile production plants rose from around 50 in the middle of the 1970s to more than 120 in the early 1990s. (Gu, 2014)

Nevertheless, regarding only the number of the total automobile output would lead to an overestimation of the actual strength of the Chinese automotive industry. The JVs with MNEs mostly assembled Completely Knocked Down kits (CKD) of outdated automobile models of the foreign partner. CKDs got imported into China and included almost every component of the automobile. Further, they included all skill-intensive automobile components. Consequently, the total value added of Chinese manufacturing plants was low and huge stakes in the profits quit China and went to the foreign MNEs (Holweg, Oliver, and Luo, 2008). Besides, despite massive import tariffs, the number of imported passenger cars remained higher than the number of domestically produced passenger cars throughout the 1980s (Gu, 2014).

Governmental Discontentment and Policy Measures of the 1990s

According to Gu in 2014, Chinese automotive enterprises did not engage sufficiently in the development of their own technologies^[1]. In order to address the R&D shortage of the Chinese automotive industry and other issues such as concerns about the product quality and the small size of Chinese automobile enterprises, the central government imposed new policy measures throughout the 1990s (Gu, 2014).

The policy measures should encourage independent product development by offering support when an enterprise demonstrated ability in technology development or produced independent products. Furthermore, the government promoted the formation of large automobile enterprises to attain greater enterprises to benefit from economies of scale. Therefore, Chinese policymakers further promoted the “big three, small three, two mini” strategy. A strategy which already came up in 1988. The “big three” included FAW, Dongfeng Motors, and SAIC, which produced most of their vehicles as JV. The “small three” refers to three smaller assemblers, which also produced a large number of vehicles as JVs with foreign partners. “two mini” refers to two automotive firms which have a defense-industry background. The idea was to promote the chosen enterprises to size them up. (Gu, 2014)

Additionally, the central government implemented new requirements for foreign JV partners and endeavored to attract new foreign JV partners. The new requirements included inter alia; the foreign company must use modern technology, the foreign partner had to establish R&D facilities in China, and the foreign partner must have independent product patents and trademarks. Further, automobile enterprises were forced to follow local content rules, which dictated certain shares of domestically produced input goods. These local content rules were imposed to promote the local component suppliers and to prevent the use of CKDs (Holweg et al., 2008). Overall, Chinese policymakers strived to strengthen the domestic automotive industry by targeting industry consolidation, by encouraging domestic enterprises to engage more in R&D and forcing foreign enterprises to transfer more of their advanced technology.

Evidently, the policies had been successful in creating large automobile enterprises. These enterprises started to dominate the domestic markets; especially the domestic passenger car market. For example, in 1998 SAIC`s JV with Volkswagen accounted for 47 percent of total domestic sedan production and Tianjin`s JV with Daihatsu accounted for 20% of total domestic sedan production. Tianjin belonged to FAW. (Gu, 2014)

Moreover, at the end of the 1990s, all leading Chinese automobile manufacturers achieved a higher degree of local content. For instance, the localization rate of Beijing-Cheep and Shanghai-Volkswagen had risen from under 20 percent in 1987 to over 80 percent by 1995 (Lo, 1997). Besides, Chinese component suppliers increased massively in their size and number. Moreover, foreign partners committed to the requirements for JVs and started to install R&D centers together with their Chinese partners (Gu, 2014).

Overall, policy measures, accompanied by allowing more features of a market economy and a massive increase in domestic demand for passenger cars, caused by a growing upper class, led to the continuation of the increase in total output of automobiles throughout the 1990s. However, the Chinese automotive industry still lacked R&D capabilities, which applied equally to automobile producers and component suppliers (Holweg et al., 2008).

The Second Stage of Development

China`s WTO accession in December 2001 was a major event in the economic history of China and the Chinese automotive industry. Since December 2001, China committees to the WTO trade laws, including inter alia the protection of intellectual property and the most favored nation treatment^[2]. The WTO entrance led to better access for Chinese enterprises to foreign markets because of the removal of quantitative restrictions and other barriers to China^[3]. Notably, the most favored nation treatment massively reduced the trading costs for Chinese enterprises. On the other hand, the WTO entrance facilitated the access to the Chinese market for foreign enterprises. (Guo, 2003)

Moreover, China`s accession to the WTO had massive consequences directly for the Chinese automotive industry. The WTO entrance was accompanied by the agreement that the tariffs for automobiles must decrease by 10 percent each year starting from the year 2000. The tariffs had to decrease to 30 percent in 2005 and to 25 percent in 2006. Throughout the 1990s, the tariffs for automobiles accounted for 80 to 100 percent. Besides, the import tariffs on automobile components must decrease to 30 percent after the WTO entry and to 10 percent in 2006. The import quota from 2001 of 300 000 passenger cars a year must increase by 20 percent annually and had to be phased out in 2006. (Guo, 2003)

Furthermore, the WTO accession facilitated the market entry for foreign automotive enterprises and led to the entry of nearly all foreign automobile brands. At that time, a complex partnership structure between local and international firms was established gradually (Gu, 2014). Additionally, there was no longer a local content rule, and the previous prohibited nonbank auto financing became legal for foreign enterprises. Besides, there was the agreement, that by 2011 it was allowed for foreign enterprises to own vehicle wholesale, retail organizations, and integrated sales organizations. (Holweg et al., 2008)

Furthermore, the WTO entrance and the consequent new openness of the Chinese automotive market pushed lethargic Chinese SOEs of the automotive industry to improvements in many areas. SOEs started to carry out restructurings, improved operational efficiency, upgraded plants, equipment, and product quality. Further, the WTO entrance and the consequent massive growth of the Chinese automotive market attracted foreign investment from manufacturers who already had operations in China and were seeking to expand their local capacity, and from enterprises which entered the Chinese market. (Holweg et al., 2008)

Nevertheless, Chinese automobile manufacturers still could not compete with the quality standards of foreign-produced automobiles (Anderson, 2012). Lower prices because of lower production costs caused by lower production factor prices, and because of the ongoing protection ensured the business of Chinese enterprises. Beyond, the prices of passenger cars, manufactured in China, dropped due to lower tariffs, the anticipation of lower tariffs in the future, and more competition (Holweg et al., 2008). Before 2001, huge import tariffs, oligopolies, and sometimes even local monopolies made it possible for Chinese automobile manufacturers to charge prices much higher than the average production costs (Deng and Ma, 2010). Hence, the latitude of price reductions without making losses was wide. After China`s WTO entrance, the vehicle price in relation to the household disposable income decreased and the demand for passenger cars grew dramatically. Moreover, with more automobile enterprises entering the market, the available model range diversified considerably. Thus, this led to a further stimulus of the demand for passenger cars (Holweg et al., 2008).

As can be referred from figure 1, in 1999 China had an annual total automobile output of around 1,83 million and out of them, 1,26 million had been commercial vehicles. In the following years, the production of passenger cars grew tremendously, reaching a total number of around 6,38 million produced passenger cars in 2007. Notwithstanding, the demand for Chinese branded cars remained low, compared with the demand for foreign-branded cars, which had been produced by JVs. Anderson (2012, p.79) mentioned that “…only about 10 percent of the passenger cars produced in China in 2002 were Chinese branded.” Further, the foreign passenger car brands started to dominate the luxury car segment, while Chinese manufacturers mostly produced and sold low-end passenger cars. Loosely these circumstances show the superiority in technology and design of foreign passenger car brands contrary to the Chinese ability to produce passenger cars at low cost.

Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten

Figure 1: China´s annual automobile production from 1999 to 2017. (Source: Own representation based on International Organization of Motor Vehicle Manufacturers OICA)

Period after the Great Recession of 2008

In 2008, the Chinese annual growth rate of the total automobile output slowed down to 4,69 percent because of the global financial crisis and the consequent great recession. However, already in 2009, the passenger cars output skyrocketed and grew by 54,11 percent to 2008. The total automobile output grew by 48,30 percent. In 2017, China produced over 29 million automobiles, thereof around 24,8 million passenger cars and 4,2 million commercial vehicles. To put this in perspective, the total passenger car output of Japan, Germany and the US combined accounted in 2017 for around 17 million units, according to the OICA database.

Further, over the last years, Chinese SOEs engaged more in R&D and managed it to develop their own automobile models and engines with a moderate technological level (Gu,2014). Chinese automobile enterprises also started to merge and acquire with foreign brands. In the course of that, the main intention was to move up the manufacturing value chain. Chinese automobile enterprises strived to benefit from foreign expertise, intellectual property and brand recognition (Gu, 2014). One famous example is the acquisition of Volvo by Geely in 2010. Nevertheless, in 2017, Chinese branded passenger cars still did not dominate the domestic market. According to data from Carsalesbase.com, in 2017, only five out of the ten most successful passenger car brands, in terms of sales in the Chinese market were Chinese brands^[4].

Moreover, according to Anderson (2012, p.75) “…, there was increasing acceptance that Chinese automakers may never catch up with the multinationals in terms of traditional internal combustion engine development. This led to a determined effort for Chinese automakers to gain a competitive position with respect to the multinationals in development of electric and hybrid vehicles”. Hence, the focus of Chinese policymakers shifted to becoming a pioneer in the development of New Energy Vehicles (NEV). NEV refers to plug-in hybrids and fully electric vehicles.

Fostering of New Energy Vehicles and the Rise of Private Companies

Notwithstanding, the upcoming of private automobile enterprises such as BYD, Geely and Great Wall and the beginning of governmental support for NEVs were essential for the current and probably future structure of the Chinese automotive industry.

In the beginning, private enterprises faced the circumstances that the government focused on the development of SOEs and had no interest in promoting private enterprises (Anderson, 2012). Nevertheless, Chinese policymakers gradually realized the potential of private enterprises because they mostly operated more independently from foreign partners. Hence, they were less reliant on foreigners and sold vehicles, which had been mostly developed in Chinese R&D centers. Moreover, contrary to many SOEs, private firms had tightly limited funds and therefore had to channel their funds more efficiently, which led to overall efficiency improvements. Consequently, Chinese policymakers started to include private companies in their reforms and subsidy systems to push their development besides the development of the SOEs (Anderson, 2012).

Furthermore, the strategy to focus on NEVs was at least as important as the upcoming of private enterprises. Electric mobility had been the focus of the latest Chinese automotive policies and consequently NEVs became increasingly important for the Chinese automotive industry. It can be assumed that Chinese policymakers had two main intentions by promoting NEVs. Firstly, to reduce air pollution, which already had become devasting in many Chinese cities, and secondly, to strive for a pioneer position in a technology which promised to become a driver of economic growth within the next years and decades. Moreover, the Western and Japanese competitors had fewer advantages in NEV technologies compared with the traditional internal combustion engine. Thus, Chinese enterprises were expected to catch up more easily (Anderson, 2012).

Over the last years, the Chinese government established various subsidy and incentive systems for enterprises which engage in R&D for NEVs and targeted ambitious goals for the number of NEVs on Chinas roads. Beyond, NEVs had been listed among seven new strategic industries^[5] in the twelfth five-year plan which got into action in 2011.

The Chinese policy measures included inter alia that producers of NEVs received subsidies for R&D and consumers received substantial subsidies for the purchase of NEVs. According to a report of the International Council of Clean Transportation from 2017, by the end of 2015, the national government had spent 33.4 billion Yuan (around $4.84 billion) on subsidies for NEVs.

Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten

Figure 2: Annual production volume of new energy vehicles in China from 2013 to 2016 by type (Source: Representation of Statista based on CAAM 2017)

As a consequence, the output and sales of NEVs skyrocketed since the beginning of the 2010s. According to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM), the output of NEVs rose to 516 000 in 2016, as can be seen in figure 2. The total output of NEVs in 2016 is more than 150 times bigger than in 2013. Most of the electric vehicles produced in China were sold in the domestic market. Exports of NEVs are minor. Further, the most successful electric vehicles in terms of sales on the Chinese market were fully electric low range models (International Energy Agency, 2018).

Additionally, China did not only focus on fully electric passenger cars; moreover, Chinese automobile enterprises achieved a pioneer position in the production of fully electric buses. The majority of electric buses were sold in the domestic market, but China also exported a remarkable number. The two main Chinese players of the production of electric buses are the independent manufacturers BYD and Yutong. (International Energy Agency, 2018)

Overall, there is the common agreement that policy measures drove the past growth of sales and output of NEVs globally. Reasonably, this may be the case for China as well. Contrary to most western countries, Chinese policymakers focused early on NEVs and Chinese automobile enterprises started to invest heavily in NEV technologies. Therefore, Chinese automobile enterprises already started years ago to gain experience in the development and production of electric vehicles.

Current Structure of the Chinese Automotive Industry

Since 2009, China is the largest market for automobiles and there is the common agreement that China is also the market with the greatest potential in the medium term. Currently, China has a population of over 1,3 billion people and the number of people who can afford a passenger car is constantly increasing. Meanwhile, the passenger cars per capita ratio is still low. Although, the passenger car per capita ratio may have increased drastically over the last years, it might be still substantially less than the cars per capita ratio of developed countries. Consequently, because of the size and potential of the Chinese automobile market, almost every foreign automotive enterprise is operating in China.

Mainly there are three different groups of players in the Chinese automobile market. Firstly, independent and mostly private Chinese automobile producers, secondly Chinese automobile enterprises which produce Chinese branded automobiles independently and foreign branded automobiles as a JV with MNEs, and lastly foreign automobile enterprises which import to China and produce with a Chinese partner as a JV, and foreign enterprises which only import their automobiles. One example for a foreign enterprise which only imports to China is Porsche. On the other hand, for instance, Mercedes Benz produces in China as a JV and imports.

Furthermore, regarding the number of sales per brand and passenger car model, provided by the database of Carsalesbase.com, Chinese branded cars, either produced in a JV or independently, tend to serve the low-end market, whereas imports of MNEs and foreign branded passenger cars, produced by JVs, dominate the high-end market. Other automobiles such as light trucks or buses sold in the Chinese market are mostly Chinese branded. Imports of these vehicles are not economically meaningful and decreased over the last years according to the UN COMTRADE database.

Moreover, the most successful passenger car brand, in terms of sales in the Chinese market is Volkswagen with around 3,1 million sales in 2017^[6]. Further, the most successful Chinese passenger car brand is the independent and private enterprise Geely which sold around 1,25 million passenger cars in 2017 and is ranked as the third most successful passenger car brand in China. Further, Chinese branded passenger cars from independent Chinese automobile producers perform better in terms of sales than Chinese branded passenger cars produced by Chinese enterprises which also engage in JVs with MNEs. Beyond, in 2017, foreign-branded cars still had large market shares (Caresalesbase.com, 2018). Though, many Chinese automobile brands could slightly increase their market share over the last years. Whereas, between 2005 and 2012, the market share of Chinese branded passenger cars only fluctuated between 40 and 46 percent, according to the Annual Report on Automotive Industry in China, published by the CAAM in 2013.

Further, according to a report of the International Council of Clean Transportation from 2017, over the last years, the share of NEVs on the number of new registrations in China increased. Moreover, in 2017, China had the most NEVs in use globally with a total number of approximately 1,2 million. Electric passenger cars sold in the Chinese market are twice the number of electric passenger cars sold in the US, the second-largest electric car market globally (International Energy Agency, 2018).

Chinese branded NEVs have a leading position in terms of sales in the Chinese market and originating from the high demand in the domestic market, Chinese electric vehicle models also have a globally dominant position in terms of shares of total global sales of electric vehicles. However, Chinese electric vehicle models are mostly low-range models which target the low-end market, and until today Chinese automobile brands did not introduce electric vehicles for the high-end market whereas international competitors, for instance, Tesla and BMW already offer fully electric vehicles for the high-end market. Notwithstanding, Chinese automobile enterprises already offer a variety of electric vehicle models, whereas most foreign automobile enterprises just started to reveal their first fully electric passenger car model.

[...]

^[1] At that time, there was a lack of horizontal competition, which impaired the incentive to start with the expensive research and development (R&D) for own automobile models. Beyond, the managements of the SOEs had been satisfied with the revenues generated by producing cars developed by the MNEs (Gu,2014).

^[2] The most favored nations treatment guarantees that countries cannot normally discriminate between their trading partners or grant someone a special favor. A country must do the same for all other WTO members. Notwithstanding, there may exist expectations, for instance, if countries set up a free trade agreement or a country can raise barriers against products that are considered to be traded unfairly from specific countries. (World Trade Organization, 2018)

^[3] There have been some particularities when China joined the WTO. The agreement guaranteed other WTO member states that they can treat China as a non-market economy. This facilitates to impose heavy anti-dumping duties towards China (Messerlin, 2004). Although the status of China as a non-market economy expired in 2016, other WTO member states, including the US and the EU, still have not declared China as a market economy yet.

^[4] This examination excluded imported cars and only took into account passenger cars which had been produced in China.

^[5] Industries listed among the seven strategic key industries received special support and treatment.

^[6] This examination excludes imported cars and only takes into account passenger cars which had been produced in China.