Auto spare parts market in Mena booms, attracts Chinese investment

DUBAI - The Middle East and North African (Mena) are poised to see their number of cars grow by 61 percent by 2020, and the expanding market of spare parts has been attracting more Chinese investment.

Speaking at the ongoing three-day Automechanika, the biggest fair and exhibition in Mena for aftermarket vehicle spare parts which started on Tuesday, Avery Chan, an official with tire producer Hengfeng from China's Shandong province, said his firm is purely involved in the replacement business in the region.

Hengfeng is one of 549 Chinese firms out of 1,889 companies, which own a stand at this year's Automechanika.

Shiva Kumar, manager of India's Bangalore-based Popular Tyres company, said the biggest advantage for him as a distributor is that tires made in China are lower in price than from other countries. "However, you have to be picky with the brands. There are many producers in China and we look precisely at every single product before we order."

According to global consultancy Frost and Sullivan, the number of cars in Mena will surge by 61 percent from the current 21.02 million to 33.91 million passenger vehicles by 2020, driving the demand for tire replacement, car paint technology and vehicle maintenance from Morocco to Iraq as the car remains key transport means in the Arab world due to a chronic lack of public transport systems like the Dubai Metro or railways networks. Saudi Arabia is the biggest market, according to the market analysis by Frost and Sullivan.

Also present with a huge exhibition stand in Sheikh Saeed hall at the Dubai world trade center is Zhejiang Just Power Supply, a producer of car batteries from Hangzhou, capital of Zheijiang province.

The firm's foreign trade manager Edward H told Xinhua that his business grows 15 percent per year, "which means we double sales volumes every five years."

"Two key aspects were behind Just's success... our product quality, as we produce German and Japanese battery standards, the two highest in the world, and the customer service for passenger car owners and commercial vehicle owners alike we offer through our partner firms in the Mena region," he added.

The market for commercial vehicle spare parts in Saudi Arabia alone is poised to increase from $2.05 billion to $3.65 billion by 2020.

As a first time exhibitor, Pascal Yan, managing director from Beijing Mytech International, said he met a lot of potential customers.