RIYADH, 3 May 2007 — Four new models of Chery cars, manufactured by Chery Automobile Company of China, were launched in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday at the showroom of First Motors Company (FMC) — sole distributor of Chery cars in the Kingdom.
At a glittering function held here at the FMC showroom, Dr. Yousef Elias Maroun, chief operating officer of First Motor Company, told newsmen that
“the launch coincides with the opening of our showrooms in Riyadh, Dammam and Jeddah.”
The new models include Chery A5, Chery Eastar, Chery V5, and SUV Chery Tiggo. Chery A5 comes in 1.6 and 2.0 liter engines, equipped with ABS and EBD brake system, front air bags and highly effective air conditioning system, remote key, rear sensors and aluminum wheels.
The event held at FMC’s first showroom in the Kingdom which was opened in June last year, was attended by Zhou Biren, vice-president of Chery Automobile Company and Fawaz Al-Hokair, chairman of the Fawaz Al-Hokair Group.
FMC is a member of the Fawaz Al-Hokair Group and its multipurpose showroom houses under one roof a maintenance center, spare parts warehouse and a spacious parking area for its customers.
Getting the dealership of Chery Automobiles for Saudi Arabia is an additional brick to Saudi-Sino economic relationship, Maroun said, adding that it will boost the ties and help the two nations forge ahead in the field of bilateral trade.
Chery’s export markets include Syria, Saudi Arabia, Costa Rica, Venezuela, Iran, Russia, Ukraine, Armenia, Turkey, Egypt, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Singapore. It has five overseas manufacturing sites — in Russia, Ukraine, Indonesia, Egypt and Iran.
For a company that rolled out its first car in 1999, Chery started mass production in 2003, and exported its maiden batch of 10 cars to Syria in 2001.
“At the end of 2006, Chery exported 50,000 cars and had established a strong presence in more than 50 foreign markets. It is now ranked number four among China’s carmakers and is gunning for the top spot, increasing the annual production capacity to one million vehicles by 2010 from the current 400,000.”
In China, Chery has three car plants, two engine plants, one gear-box plant and an auto engineering research institute with research and developing, design, testing and production capability.
Its assembly plant in Wuhu, China’s Anhui province, has a bodywork section which is 60 percent automated , while its paint shop is 90 percent automated.
According to a China Daily report, China is poised to overtake Japan as the world’s second biggest car market and unseat the US as No. 1 in the next 10 to 15 years.
In the first three quarters of 2006, sales of China-made vehicles surged by a quarter to 5.17 million units. Total vehicle sales, including trucks and buses, hit 6.9 million units last year and is expected to reach eight million this year.
