Renewed ferocious "overcapacity" competition

During the 12th Five-Year Plan period, the country will firmly control the excess production capacity of vehicles. On September 4th, Chen Bin, Director of the Industry Coordination Department of the National Development and Reform Commission, spoke to the “China Automotive Industry Development International Forum in 2010” to pour water on the Chinese auto industry, which is in a fast-rising stage.

The vigilance of “overcapacity” has been lingering in the ears of car companies in recent years, but it is often overshadowed by the market’s warming and sudden increase in market demand.

According to the results of the fifth auto production survey conducted by the China Automotive Technology and Research Center and the Automotive Industry Policy Research Office commissioned by the National Development and Reform Commission at the beginning of this year, the Group has 20 automotive enterprise groups and 10 backbone automotive companies at the end of 2009. The completed vehicle production capacity is 13.95 million units. By the end of 2015, the planned production capacity has reached 31.24 million units.

“Overcapacity is the normal state of the market economy. It is very important that excess production capacity is caused by unstable market signals. It is difficult for companies to forecast market demand, leading to greater blindness in investment behavior,” said Chen Bin.

To this end, the National Development and Reform Commission proposed that “in the expansion of enterprises and the establishment of branches in other places for the record, we must fully consider the company's capacity utilization, land utilization, corporate brand, development and innovation, production of new energy vehicles and mergers and acquisitions and other conditions” and other five The new plan to curb excess vehicle capacity.

Regarding the concerns of the National Development and Reform Commission, some people in the auto industry have different opinions.

Dong Yang, executive vice president of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, believes that in recent years, the NDRC's concerns about overcapacity in the automotive industry have been frustrated every time. However, the NDRC's focus on capacity issues is understandable. After all, this is the responsibility of national ministries and commissions.

Xu Changming, director of the Economic Information Center of the State Information Center, told the “First Financial Daily” interview that the issue of overcapacity was more clearly rejected. “First of all, regardless of private companies or joint ventures and state-owned enterprises, they will adjust themselves according to the market. Second, the current production capacity. The utilization ratio is relatively high, the normal capacity utilization rate of the auto industry is 75%, and the utilization rate of auto production capacity in China last year was about 120%, which is already overloaded production, and the auto market is still developing. Therefore, the auto production capacity does not need to be too large Worry."

In fact, the wave of expansion of automobile enterprises triggered by the rapid market warming is indeed a threat. According to the expansion plans announced by auto companies, BYD, Geely, Chery, Brilliance, Jianghuai and other self-owned brands are planning 2012 production capacity. To reach the scale of one million cars. Joint venture brands and state-owned auto groups have rushed around and built factories in different places.

Chen Bin bluntly stated that family sedans and minibuses have become investment hotspots. Some production companies that originally did not produce minivans have also started brewing to enter this segment of the market. High-sales expectations have led to extreme deterioration in capacity expansion.

Most auto makers stated that at least the overcapacity will not be immediately apparent. After all, the construction of new factories will require a construction cycle, and there will still be room for growth. “Auto manufacturers have long learned to control production capacity in the ups and downs of the auto market in China and will not ignore the market. Blindly expand production," said a joint venture company manager.

Chen Bin disclosed that the monitoring of the production capacity and utilization rate of the automobile industry by the relevant national authorities has been put on the agenda. “Industrial production, sales, investment and production capacity, elimination of backwardness, corporate restructuring, and other related policies and relevant policies will be released to the society in a timely manner to guide the rational allocation of resources. ."