“Stay tuned,” Wang Dazong, chief executive of Beijing Automotive Industry Holding Corp, told reporters yesterday. “We want to move fast.” BAIC, which was to take a minority stake in General Motors' lossmaking Saab unit in return for funding a bid from Koenigsegg, is now in talks with GM about buying the whole lot.
Mr Wang's impatience is born of frustration. BAIC, owned by the municipal government of Beijing, was the first Chinese carmaker to hook up with a foreign counterpart, when it teamed with Chrysler's Jeep 26 years ago. Partnerships have since proliferated, but there was never doubt as to who was in charge: virtually all technology and management savvy was contributed by foreigners.
Fast-growing sales have been good for the big state-owned assembly specialists, helping them vault up the lists of global giants-by-revenue so beloved of the country's economic planners. But it has meant that China has no dominant domestic brand, let alone a global one. So far this year Volkswagen has sold more passenger vehicles than China's top three (Geely, Chery and BYD) put together. China's exports, meanwhile, are mostly confined to markets the west would rather leave alone, such as Algeria, Vietnam and Syria.