Herbert Eibensteiner, chief executive of voestalpine, finds that Chinese carmakers active in Europe could offer a lifeline for European manufacturers of steel and components that suffer from cutbacks at traditional domestic brands.
“When [the Chinese] come in and produce cars it can be a positive,” Eibensteiner gets quoted as saying in the Financial Times. He cites Chinese carmaker BYD as one example. “They are really close to us in Hungary . . . and it’s logical that we see them as a new customer,” he told the paper.
The year has seen a succession of bad news at European carmakers, with production cutbacks announced by brands like VW and BMW, and automotive supplier groups like Schaeffler. So far, though, voestalpine has stated that it could keep up the volumes it supplies to the automotive industry.
Author: Christian Koehl Germany
