Hospodarske noviny:
"Expansion of Chinese automakers into Europe is already in sight. While Chinese cars with combustion engines were rather ridiculed at the beginning of the millennium, it is different with electric cars. They are gradually squeezing out European competitors in their home market, while penetrating key European markets such as Germany and France and accelerating their sales there. However, transporting cars from China to Europe is expensive, with import tariffs adding to the price, so Asian manufacturers are planning to build their own factories in Europe. And make their cars even cheaper for Europeans.
Most recently, the carmaker Great Wall Motors (GWM) has announced its intention to build a factory in Europe. According to the company's president, it is currently looking for a suitable site.
Will European incentives come?
The question is how local governments would approach Chinese investment in Europe and whether they would support it with incentives. "If it is a standard project in the field of electromobility and if it complies with Czech laws protecting against risky investors, the government could treat it like other similar projects from other countries," thinks, for example, Ondřej Votruba, executive director of the Association for Foreign Investment.
He said European countries now have ample opportunities to prevent companies from potentially problematic countries from investing in strategic sectors, but an expert would not consider the standard production of electric cars a strategic investment. In his opinion, European industry and security should not be endangered."
Read the full article here (in Czech language only).