megatrends

Megatrends
down. In the past we had growth figures of 20%,
30% per year. It's always difficult to give a figure,
but the latest forecasts I have seen for China
2013 indicated growth of between 5-10%.
But that's still growth that many other
markets can only dream of...
Exactly. It's still quite a positive development
and I would call it a sustainable development.
By sustainable, do you mean that the
market in China will continue to grow at
5-10% over the next ten years?
It’s impossible to give a precise forecast. But
across the region as a whole, such a growth
will be long-term. We always talk about China,
but India is a huge market that also enjoys
growth of 5-6% on an annual basis.
Do you anticipate the rapid levels of
growth we have seen in China being
replicated in India?
I think India is rather different. Simply looking at
the increase in GDP per inhabitant, the increase
was dramatic over the last ten years in China, but
now that growth is much slower. It's still growing,
of course, but the growth is less dramatic in India
than in China. And GDP per capita and number
of sales, well, these two figures go hand in hand.
It's all about purchasing power.
What role do you think Africa will play
as a market over the next ten years?
Africa is growing quite nicely, particularly
South Africa, where the expectation for 2012
was a market of something like 635,000
vehicles - that's a growth of more than 11%.
Of course, the figures compared to China are
low but it is still growth, and what we have
seen over the last couple of years is that South
Africa tends to attract the other surrounding
countries in the same movement. When there
is growth in South Africa, then there is also
growth in other sub-Saharan countries. That
seems to be an interesting development, even
though the absolute figures are rather small in
comparison to other markets.
Do you see the unrest in the Middle East
and North Africa as something that
could hinder any potential growth in the
region over the next ten years?
I am sure it will, because of the uncertainty
about what will happen at a political level in
North Africa. The problem is simply that
nobody knows. But Renault opened a plant in
Morocco just a couple of months ago, and is
2011
Manufacturing data published by OICA in 2012
23 Automotive World Megatrends magazine | www.automotiveworld.com Q1 2013