New Gov’t Rules Shake Foreign Automakers to the Core.doc

New Gov?t Rules Shake Foreign Automakers to the Core “I have bought this Audi A6 for five years. I decided to buy it because most government officials took the same car. When I went to talk with them in Audi A6, I could impress them and trigger their senses of identity.” The words mentioned above came from Chen Nan, general manager of a government purchasing agent in Beijing. However, Chen Nan might need a Red Flag car or any other Chinese self-owned brand to gain the “sense of identity” of Chinese government officials. That?s because the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (hereafter MIIT) published the Catalogue of Public Vehicles for Government and CPC Departments in 2012 (hereafter the “Catalogue”), which list 25 automakers and 412 types of cars – notably, all of them are Chinese self-owned brands. For foreign automakers which have monopolized the government car market in China for years, the publishing of the“Catalogue” is undoubtedly bad news. Will they willingly accept the fate of being driven out of this market in the future? Depressed Audi Foreign cars are always popular for government-level purchasers. Though relevant departments once required a minimum 50% proportion of self-owned brands in the government purchasing, but unfortunately the requirement was completely ignored by many government departments. But this time, the central government seemed to get serious and did not plan to give foreign cars any chance to strike back. It is necessary to mention Audi when talking about gov- ernment car purchasing. It is known that 20% of Audi cars sold in China every year came from the government purchasing before 2010. The proportion had a decrease in 2011 but was still maintained between 10%-15%. When asked about the opinions about the new “Catalogue”, the PR Department of Audi China, which used to be“bold” and “straight”, became unusually cautious. “We are studying how to deal with the influence from the ?Catalogue?but the