Chinese carmaker Geely has secured a $3.24 billion credit facility from the Export-Import Bank of China, which it intends to use mainly to double export sales to 40% over the next five years.
As well as investment in new plants and dealers overseas the funds will be used to build up international logistics networks according to the company.
The fund is good news for Geely which saw export volumes drop by almost 7,000 units in the first two months of 2014, down around 55%, compared with the same period the previous year. Total sales volume was down around 42% over those two months by 54,850 units compared to the first two months of 2013.
“[T]he ongoing reshuffle of the sales and marketing system of the Group and the sales volume achieved in the traditional slack season for exports sales have contributed to the lower sales volume achieved in February 2014,” said Geely in a statement. “Also the Group is in the midst of a major product upgrading cycle and this would affect the Group’s sales in the early part of the year.”
Despite the most recent figures, last year Geely become China’s biggest vehicle exporter and has set targets to make exports account for 50% of its total sales by 2018.
Last year the company sold almost 550,000 vehicles, up 14% from 2012 and of those sales 22% were accounted for as exports (119,000), up 17% from the previous year.
