RAMPED-UP capacity by Chinese automakers during the heady days of 30-50 percent annual growth has bumped headlong into a domestic slowdown, and now indigenous firms are seeking buyers in far-flung corners of the world, from Egypt to Ukraine to Indonesia.

    With Western markets still out of reach, China's domestic automakers are staking their export push on the same formula that's worked for them at home: no frills but acceptable quality.

    Indeed, for many domestic automakers, relying solely on the China market is no longer an option.

    "The rapid growth phase of China's auto market is coming to an end, and we see exports as one possible outlet for all the capacity we have built up," says Xing Wenlin, Great Wall Motor vice president in charge of overseas markets.

    "We need to go beyond the China market to survive."

    On the frontline of this export push are low-cost cars like the Great Wall Haval sport-utility vehicle models and a minicar called the Panda — the same affordable cars whose sales are booming in China as the country's own emerging middle-class clamors to get behind the wheel.

    The quality of those rides — available for as little as around 40,000 yuan (US$6,300) — might not be sufficient for consumers in the United States and Europe, but they're deemed good enough for emerging-market consumers around the world. Some in Western markets like Italy and Australia are also starting to notice those no-frills cars, too.

    By satisfying a growing appetite for value cars like the Panda, Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co. — a Hangzhou-based automaker that acquired Sweden's Volvo in 2010 — wants to become an export force. To power its push, Geely is trying, for example, to gain advanced car technology from Volvo to improve and differentiate its cars.

    "My vision," Geely and Volvo chairman Li Shufu told Reuters, "is to sell outside China the same number of cars we sell within China."

    Geely this year is aiming to sell 460,000 vehicles overall: 60,000 to 70,000 outside China and the rest within China. The company sold about 38,000 vehicles overseas last year.

    Li declined to elaborate on how soon he envisions he can achieve his objective.

    A host of other Chinese auto companies are also working to boost exports. Major players include Chery Automobile Co. and SAIC Motor Corp. They are doing so in part because the quality and safety of their Chinese-designed cars have improved.

    Geely's technology and product-development chief Frank Zhao contends that a "commoditization" of technology has helped China's indigenous automakers improve quality and raise Chinese-designed cars' credibility overseas.

    An economic growth slowdown is also playing into China's auto export push. Vehicle sales grew just 2.5 percent last year after logging growth above 30 percent each of the previous two years. That in turn has freed up capacity to produce cars for export.

    According to consulting firm LMC Automotive, automakers in China as a whole used 84 percent of their combined vehicle-manufacturing capacity in 2010. LMC Automotive expects that so-called capacity utilization rate to slump to 64 percent this year. That means 36 percent of automakers' overall capacity is likely to sit unused — unless they can tap new demand overseas.

    Last year, Chinese exports of cars and trucks reached a record of 849,500 vehicles, up nearly 50 percent from 2010, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. A majority of those vehicles — mostly vehicles priced well below 100,000 yuan — were shipped to markets such as Brazil, Algeria and Russia.

    Many analysts and industry executives expect the growth to continue at a similar pace — high double-digit percentage growth — at least over the next several years.

    Global automakers are also getting in on the action.

    One of the most aggressive among a handful of global makers and their Chinese joint-venture partners is General Motors Co. (GM). For GM, the business here until recently was strictly a China play. But after almost 15 years in China, its main joint venture with SAIC Motor is not just a gateway to China. In recent years, GM and SAIC have begun teaming up to export China-market cars to Egypt, Chile, India, Uzbekistan and elsewhere.(SD-Agencies)