China floods Iran with cheap consumer goods in exchange for oil
On the north Tehran stretch of the busy Shariati Street, the newly opened car dealership, Geelran, offers a range of Chinese-made vehicles to middle-class city dwellers. A stone's throw from the former grounds of the British embassy, left vacant after a hostile takeover by anti-western demonstrators in late 2011, the new headquarters of the Geely brand is the second Chinese automobile manufacturer in Iran. Another company, Chery Motors, has been active here for five years, and produces several of its low-range vehicles on Iranian assembly lines.
The price of the French-made Renault Mégane, until recently a staple for local car buyers, has tripled since 2011. It now sells for around 42.2m tomans (£22,450), and spare parts are becoming scarce.
Meanwhile, Geely's Emgrand EC7 hatchback has a slightly lower price range (38.7m tomans), suggesting that Zhejiang Geely Holding Group is angling to attract a slice of the local consumer market as sanctions make western-made goods difficult to come by – but at a quality experts say is far lower than the European-made cars it imitates.
"It's an appalling car manufacturer, and yet another one flooding Iran with cars made on old platforms," said a Tehran-based financial analyst with close links to Sino-Iranian trade. "Instead of hard cash, China is bartering for Iranian oil with cheap consumer items."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/iran-blog/2013/feb/20/china-floods-iran-cheap-consumer-goods?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487
= new reply since forum marked as read
Renault Meganes are not all that anyway.
I'm wondering if China bought full old model western production lines as Eastern Europe did in the old days from Fiat and GM.
