China's FAW Trucks aims for 10,000 sales a year in Middle East, chairman says
ABU DHABI, May 21 (Reuters) - FAW Trucks, China's largest truck maker by sales, believes it will be able to eventually sell more than 10,000 trucks a year in the Middle East and is seeking local partners to reach that goal, its chairman said on Wednesday.
Li Sheng, chairman of FAW Trucks (000800.SZ), opens new tab, said as part of this effort to more aggressively court the market, they were speeding up the construction of an assembly plant in Saudi Arabia, which had started a trial project on electric trucks.
He did not give a timeline for when they believed they could reach such a scale. The unit, which also makes other types of vehicles such as tractors, sold 214,000 medium and heavy trucks last year. It exported 57,000 vehicles but did not disclose how many were trucks.
"We see an accelerated trend of deploying new technologies in the logistics sector in the region," he told Reuters on the sidelines of the World New Energy Vehicle Congress in Abu Dhabi.
"So we are seeking local partners and introducing high-end products."
Southeast Asia, Central Asia, Latin America were also target overseas markets, Li added, citing Brazil in particular, as FAW Trucks eventually aims to sell 500,000 vehicles annually with 36% of those going abroad.
FAW Trucks, whose Chinese name is FAW Jiefang, is a unit of Changchun-based FAW. FAW also owns other car brands such as Hongqi, or Red Flag, known to be former state leader Chairman Mao Zedong's favourite car brand.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Telegraph
9 hours ago
- Telegraph
Trump is running out of time to crush Iran's nuclear ambitions
As President Trump works to negotiate a nuclear deal with Iran, the Islamic Republic is feverishly building up its offensive military capabilities. The most recent International Atomic Energy Agency report says Tehran has been producing enough 60 per cent enriched uranium to make one nuclear weapon every month and now has enough material to build ten bombs. It would take no more than two weeks to further enrich this to the 90 per cent required to achieve weapons-grade. It seems likely that the pace of enrichment has if anything increased since nuclear negotiations began. The IAEA board is due to meet today and may vote on a noncompliance resolution against Iran. Logically, this would lead to snapback UN sanctions under the 2015 Obama nuclear deal, unless Tehran starts to comply with IAEA inspections which it has failed to do up to now. Snapback wouldn't necessarily happen immediately and no doubt the European signatories would coordinate with the White House given Trump's live negotiations. The president gave the ayatollahs two months to reach a deal, threatening military action if not. That two months is up now and all proposals have apparently been rejected. Iran's nuclear programme threatens the world and especially the Middle East, with Sunni Arab countries viewed as sworn enemies in Tehran's maniacal eyes. But Israel is most immediately in Khamenei's cross-hairs with his repeated guarantees to annihilate it. It is the only country other than the US that is capable of damaging Iran's nuclear project, but is now on the horns of a dilemma. Israel can hardly attack while its number one ally is in negotiations on exactly this issue. And if Trump eventually agrees a deal which does not fully dismantle nuclear production facilities – which is a distinct possibility – it will be faced with a decision on whether to go ahead anyway against Trump's likely desire. Israel is also certain to face obstruction from European leaders who will cravenly do what they can to avoid conflict no matter the consequences. If Trump's negotiations grind to a halt and snapback sanctions are imposed, they will no doubt demand that these are given a chance to work and meanwhile Israel should refrain from attacking. Such vacillation can be more easily swept aside than hard objections from the US, from which Israel would anyway need support including with potentially large retaliation from Iran. On that subject, Tehran's ballistic missile stockpiles have been severely depleted by two major attacks against Israel last year, the IDF's strikes against Iranian ballistic missile production facilities and by export of missiles to Russia to attack Ukraine. But Iran is not sitting on its hands over that challenge any more than it is over uranium enrichment. Earlier this year it took delivery of shipments of ammonium perchlorate from China and has reportedly ordered thousands of tons more, expected to arrive in the coming months. This is an essential component for solid fuel ballistic missiles, including nuclear armed missiles. As well as direct use against Israel, Iran will also send missiles to Lebanon to rebuild Hizballah and to its other proxies in Iraq and Yemen to attack Israel and potentially US forces in the region. All this means the time for effective military action is now. Iran will do everything it can to spin out talks with the US, doing its best to lead the negotiators along while manipulating Europeans to throw a lifeline. As well as building up its offensive capabilities, it will be trying to replace its Russian-supplied air defences shattered by an IDF counterstrike last October. It will also be further hardening and dispersing its nuclear facilities. Trump needs to understand that, even if a deal is agreed, it won't be worth the paper its written on. Tehran has repeatedly breached the terms of Obama's deal as well as its obligations under the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty. Whatever obfuscation it comes up with, Iran will not voluntarily surrender its nuclear weapons programme. All these negotiations will therefore achieve is to obstruct and delay the inevitable. It is imperative that the US now gives a green light to Netanyahu to do what he has to do, and provide him with whatever support he needs. The consequences of failure to act go beyond Iran's nuclear capabilities. Trump's moves will also be measured in Moscow and Beijing. Anything other than a hard line with Tehran will be taken as a sign of weakness. It will encourage Putin to continue to refuse to negotiate over Ukraine, believing the cost to be low. And it will show Xi that even the most bullish and unpredictable president the White House has seen for many years may not stand in the way of his own imperial ambitions. Ultimately, deterrence comes down to demonstrable political will. If a (not yet) nuclear armed state can't be prevented from endangering the world by the American superpower, then what hope is there for anyone deterring two nuclear states.
Daily Mail
13 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Al-Hilal turn attention to Bruno Fernandes' Portugal team-mate after failing in their pursuit of Manchester United captain
Al-Hilal have set their sights on another Premier League midfielder after their failed pursuit of Manchester United 's Bruno Fernandes. Fernandes turned down a stunning £200m proposal from Saudi giants Al-Hilal, according to reports. The Saudi side made the Red Devils skipper their priority signing ahead of the upcoming Club World Cup and were prepared to offer the Portuguese a tax-free contract in the region of £700,000-a-week plus bonuses, treble his weekly earnings in England. Mail Sport revealed that Fernandes' agent, Miguel Pinho, spent three days at the Four Seasons hotel in Riyadh last week, where he held face-to-face talks with club officials. However, news broke on Tuesday morning claim that Fernandes came to a decision over his future and rejected the proposal from the Saudi giants. And now they have turned their attention to a midfielder from United's rivals Manchester City. Foot Mercato report that midfielder Bernardo Silva is high on the club's shortlist after the club appointed former Inter Milan boss Simone Inzaghi. The outlet adds that Al-Hilal have already submitted a contractual offer to Silva, who is currently in Germany ahead of Sunday's Nations League final in Munich. Silva, 30, is entering the final year of his current contract at the Etihad after eight years at the club. He has contributed 71 goals and 72 assists in 404 appearances for the Citizens, helping them win six Premier League titles and the Champions League.
The Guardian
18 hours ago
- The Guardian
Bruno Fernandes staying means Manchester United face all kinds of trade-offs
In publicly rejecting the overtures of the Saudi Pro League, Bruno Fernandes has made it clear he wants to continue playing football at the highest level. That he wants to challenge for trophies. That he has no interest in wasting what remains of his peak years jogging around aimlessly in the service of a vast public relations project, providing lucrative content for a cruel and heartless regime. Despite all this, he's more than happy to remain at Manchester United for now. There were other angles to this decision. In a sense, Al-Hilal's courtship of Fernandes represented a kind of catch-22 for United, desperate to reinforce their underperforming squad while remaining compliant with profitability and sustainability rules. Only a player who truly loved United could contemplate leaving in order to help balance the books. But in signalling his willingness to leave, Fernandes merely demonstrated why United could not possibly let him go. Here, after all, is a player who has firmly established himself as one of the best midfielders in the world while playing for a team that has just finished 15th in the league, who so clearly adores this club and its people more than its parasitic owners ever will. But in this market everything has its price and for Al-Hilal – under the new management of Simone Inzaghi – that price was reported to be £100m in fees and around £50m a year in wages. Selling Fernandes would have been the easy way out for United: a huge fee for a 30-year-old on massive wages, which could then be reinvested in the rest of the squad. As it is, Fernandes will probably have to be accommodated – tactically and financially – alongside United's two forward signings: Matheus Cunha from Wolves and Bryan Mbeumo, who is in the process of being acquired from Brentford. How might Ruben Amorim blend these three richly gifted talents? And what trade-offs will need to be made in the process? The first statistic that jumps out is that Cunha and Mbeumo were first and third for xG overperformance in the 2024-25 Premier League season. To put it in lay terms: they scored 35 goals between them, whereas the average player presented with exactly the same chances would be expected to score 20.9 goals. So are these elite finishers? Well, neither player has remotely outperformed their xG to a similar extent before, which suggests their goal haul is more the result of temporary luck than sustainable class. In short: if United are signing Cunha or Mbeumo in expectation of a reliable 20-goal striker, they are likely to be disappointed. Mbeumo's strength, historically, has been as a creative attacker rather than a pure target man: a link between midfield and attack, quick feet in the penalty area, a dainty dink to the back post. Interestingly, while he has outperformed his expected goals he has underperformed his expected assists for the first time. Mbeumo makes perfect sense as a foil for a deadlier finisher such as Yoane Wissa or Ivan Toney or Vincent Aboubakar with Cameroon. But he is not necessarily that deadly finisher himself. Cunha, for all his undoubted technical gifts and spectacular interventions for Wolves, fits the profile of an attacking midfielder more than a pure striker. He is at his most comfortable picking the ball up 40 yards out, combining with others, playing the killer through ball or shooting early from long range. Of all the players who have scored more than six goals in the Premier League season, only two – on average – took their shots from further out. One was Eberechi Eze. The other was Fernandes. What, then, is the wider strategy? Is it to convert the 5ft 7in Mbeumo into a No 9? Is it to provide the perfect platform for Rasmus Højlund? Is it to build a more fluid attacking model in which the front three in Amorim's 3-4-3 can freely interchange and shift the point of attack, a system that somehow harnesses Mbeumo's physicality and Cunha's link play and both men's ability to progress the ball in the opposition half? And if so, how does it respond against teams that do not allow United the space to transition and run from deep against them? Sign up to Football Daily Kick off your evenings with the Guardian's take on the world of football after newsletter promotion Perhaps we will not know for sure until United line up in pre-season. Perhaps further signings will clarify the strategy. Perhaps in time United will come to resemble their 2020-21 iteration under Ole Gunnar Solskjær; a side largely set up on the transition, built around the pace of Marcus Rashford, Mason Greenwood and Anthony Martial, when Fernandes enjoyed the most singularly destructive season of his career. But all of this requires a certain leap of faith. Faith in the ability of Mbeumo and Cunha to continue their upward trajectory, to thrive in new more claustrophobic environments. Faith in the ability of Fernandes to adapt to what is likely to be a deeper and more disciplined role, with less scope for roaming all over the pitch. Faith in the United hierarchy to balance the books, to make the necessary sales in a market where everyone knows United have to sell. Above all it requires a faith in Amorim. To find the solutions that have been so scarce thus far. To be the coach United hired rather than the guy every United coach seems to become in the end: tired, jaded, fearful, resentful, a punchline pursued by viral Gary Neville clips. United's age of dominance has gone. Their financial impregnability has gone. Their cash reserves have gone. Their swagger, their dignity, their proud sense of exceptionalism: all gone. In a way, blind faith may be all the modern United has left.
