Geely enters Egypt with CKD Operation, aiming to take on North African markets

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Geely announced earlier today that it has inked a deal with Egyptian automotive company, GB Auto, to set up a CKD factory in Egypt and will target the North African markets in the coming months.

GB Auto and Geely will produce and distribute Geely cars in high growth markets across North Africa, the project will start with the launch of two Geely models in Egypt in the second quarter of 2012. Although relatively unknown outside of Egypt, GB Auto is one of the leading automotive assembler and distributor in Egypt with a 31.7% of market share in Egypt, GB Auto has previous experience in bringing and producing Hyundai vehicles into Egypt as well as big name commercial vehicles such as Volvo and Mitsubishi vehicles.

The first vehicles to see Egyptian roads are the Panda and Panda Crossover, the Emgrand EC7 sedan will be made available in the third quarter of 2012. CKD production will begin in the same third quarter, with the EC7 being the first product to be produced in Egypt both companies have said they will be CKD products shipped over from China and assembled in Egypt with the companies aiming to localize as much content as possible, initial production is set to be at 30,000 units per year with models being sent to other North African markets as well.

“This new relationship with Geely is one of several partnerships we will announce this year that will see GB Auto introduce new brands and new products to both existing and expansion markets,” said GB Auto Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Dr. Raouf Ghabbour. “Going forward, our emphasis will be on both making the best possible use of our recently expanded passenger car assembly capacity in Egypt and on completing our product lineup in our home market as well as in our target expansion markets.”

Geely is pushing for a major export sales push in 2012 to offset slowing sales in its domestic Chinese market, 2011 export sales reached 38,000 units for Geely, miniscule when compared to other active Chinese car exporters but Geely did show an increase of 76% in export sales over 2010. Geely’s Panda, EC8, and EC7-RV are some of the companies more popular models sold in export markets.