The Emergence of the Chinese Automobile Sector（中国汽车行业的出现）.pdf

The Emergence of the Chinese Automobile Sector Mark Baker and Markus Hyvonen* the Chinese automobile sector has experienced rapid growth over the past decade, with China recently becoming the world’s largest producer of automobiles. Given the steel-intensive nature of automobile production, the expansion of China’s automobile sector has seen it become an important end-user of steel. With the number of cars in China still very low relative to its large population, car sales are likely to remain at a high level for the foreseeable future; accordingly, Chinese car makers should remain a significant (and growing) source of demand for steel. Introduction The recent surge in automobile production has seen the sector become an important end-user of The Chinese automobile sector has expanded steel, accounting for 8 per cent of China’s total steel rapidly over the past decade. Growth has been consumption in 2009 (MofCOM 2010). According particularly strong over 2009 and 2010 (boosted to the China Iron and Steel Association, between by various stimulus measures), with production 50 and 60 per cent of the weight of a typical car and sales of automobiles doubling over this period is made up of steel and a further 12 to 15 per cent (Graph 1). As a result of