China, the Final Hope of Iran’s Auto Industry

Khodrocar – sanctions are rising everyday but we can see track of European automakers in Iran we still hopeful to see them in Iran but we should be prepared and predict the future. If the sanctions keep rising and Trump force them to leave Iran then we should be prepared that some brands like Great Wall, FAW, BYD, Geely and JAC will cut their activity because they won’t sell their bright future in North America for selling thousands of cars in Iran’s market.

Now the question is after they left Iran what will be produced in Iran’s market? Are we going to see low quality Chinese cars on streets or just we should prepare ourselves for domestic automobiles?

"Iran’s auto industry doesn’t have a complete cycle so it can’t be independent and supply all segments of the market. Therefore, we would face difficult challenges in this condition.” Hassan Karimi Sanjari, auto expert told Khodrocar reporter.  "We still have problem to produce domestic cars which are based on old platforms because during previous sanctions we supply some parts from China. If they join the sanction group then we would lose Chinese cars and even face problems for producing domestic vehicles.”

"The complete cycle of producing vehicle contains: research, development, designing platform, part making and modern assembly line and Iran never had this cycle because every one of them needs high financial support and technical knowhow.” He added.  

"The key of Chinese improvement is high quality partner and they brought finance, technical knowhow and regional, international market with them to the Chinese market. Chinese took advantages from this opportunity and now they are improved, otherwise, Iran’s auto industry never had this chance and even after the JCPOA they didn’t have much time to use their contracts and joint ventures.” Sanjari said.

"It’s been 40 years that our country has not reached the modern technical knowhow and infrastructure for part making and now it maybe a question why we are not moving forward ourselves? Frist reason is the political situation of Iran which isn’t let a vast investment and second reason is the governmental auto industry.” he continued.

"Governmental management is different from government hold stocks, the second one is okay but Iran’s auto industry moved backward because of the governmental management. Also, problems such as war had postponed the privatization but after that the government decided to hold on this industry and now it is too hand them to private sector compare to one or two decade ago.” He said.  

It seems that today’s fear of Chinese leaving Iran’s market is relating to the old topic of privatization. This topic has been in the shelfs of decision for years and nothing has happened to it.

Khodrocar Reporter: Mostafa Anisi

Khodrocar Translator: Amin Zamani