Citroen has announced that its latest high-end saloon cars will be moved to a factory in Chengdu, but will mainly target the Chinese market. The editor-in-chief of Le Monde is worried that this decision will send a damaging signal. (Getty Images)
Citroën announced today that all of its latest high-end saloon cars will be manufactured in its Chengdu plant and some will be shipped back to Europe for sale, but mainly to the Chinese market, a clear ambition to enter the Chinese market. The editor-in-chief of Le Monde is worried that this decision will send a damaging signal.
Citroën today announced its latest high-end car models, demonstrating the group’s ambition for the mainland China market. Vincent Cobée, Citroën’s president, said the original hybrid series, called “C5X,” will be built exclusively in Chengdu, China. When it goes on sale this fall, it will also focus primarily on the mainland Chinese market.
The C5X is a premium car in Europe; in mainland China it will be a tool for brand capture and repositioning,” said Corbet.
The Stellantis Group, which was formed by the merger of Fiat Chrysler and Peugeot Citroën at the end of last year, is now preparing to make a strong re-entry into mainland China, the world’s number one car market.
In response to the news, Philippe Escande, editor-in-chief of Le Monde, believes that Stellantis’ decision to relocate all of its high-end saloon car production lines to mainland China sends a disruptive signal.
On April 10, 800 employees gathered outside the Bausch & Lomb Citroën plant in the northern French city of Douvrin to fiercely protest the company’s decision to move its motor line to Hungary, where it has lost half the number of employees, manufacturers and equipment vendors in the overall French auto industry over the past 20 years.
Iskender pointed out that in 2000, France was the second largest producer of cars after Germany; today it ranks 4th alongside the United Kingdom. France is the No. 1 country in Europe in terms of out-migration of the auto industry, which is a surprising contradiction for a country whose government is a direct shareholder of Renault, one of the world’s largest automakers. To make matters worse, Renault is the manufacturer that moved the most out of the country during the 2000s.
Iskender goes on to write that this decision by Stellantis to build Citroen’s future high-end saloon cars in mainland China releases two damaging signals.
First, Chinese industrial specifications are now among the best in the world. Iskender asks: “What is left in France after this? To be honest, the production lines of the saloon cars of Bausch & Lomb Citroën and Renault have left French soil completely for the last 20 years.” The Bausch & Lomb 208, Renault Clio and Dacia are produced in Slovakia, Turkey and Romania.
Only the BPS SUV model, which had saved the day, remains in France. As in Germany, only high-margin, high-unit-price models can break through labor costs and manufacturing taxes, both of which are known as industry hiring and investment killers in France.
In 1931, Iskender said, Citroën’s founder brought cars from France to Beijing along the Silk Road, demonstrating the product’s technological superiority; now the direction is reversed, with the luxurious C5X coming to Paris from Sichuan.
Another signal is that, despite the spread of the epidemic, the trade between the United States and China, and the precautionary measures taken in Europe, mainland China is still at the center of the international trade game.
In 2020, China is the number one target of global foreign investment, significantly ahead of the United States, and the trade agreement between Europe and China signed at the end of 2020 will accelerate this phenomenon.
Not only Dufresne, but the whole of France should be worried”, Iskender concluded.
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