The Chinese automotive industry: WTO accession, problems in going global and future potential

The Chinese economy has been growing with a pace and duration that the world has never seen before. Since 1978, the country has been facing a constant economic growth for more than 30 years. One of the pillars of the economy is the automotive industry; an interesting mixture of Joint Ventures and independent companies. The competition is cut throat and has even been more intense after the China’s World Trade Organization accession in 2001. The potential of the industry is huge, taken into consideration the size of the market and the impressive growth of the economy. All the above leave no doubt: the WTO accession in 2001 was a very important evolution that could trigger many changes in the country’s industry and potentially give the Chinese auto manufacturers the chance to go global and compete in Western, more prestigious markets but in the same time caused serious concern about the possible threats that it could cause. The questions this paper will try to answer are two. Has the WTO had a positive effect on the Chinese auto industry, and if so, and more importantly, how has it? In addition, the question of the times concerning the auto industry; can the Chinese compete abroad? Can they follow the example followed by the Japanese and the Koreans and become real global players and if so how long should the world wait for the fourth big one