Dumping Ground:China begins export of used cars to Nigeria

China has commenced the export of used cars to Africa, Asia and Europe, with Nigeria one of the destinations for the first batch of 300 cars. The country’s Ministry of Commerce had, in a statement, announced that it had cleared 10 cities to begin the export of second-hand cars to global markets, apparently with a view to driving domestic vehicle sales, which contracted last year for the first time since the 1990s.
Until now, China had been uninvolved in selling used cars abroad, but it now hopes to start benefiting from the booming global used vehicle market, which recorded an estimated sale of 39.3 million vehicles in 2017, up 1.8 per cent from 2016 sales, outstripping the 17.1m figure for 2017 new vehicle sales, which dipped by 2 per cent on the 2016 sales figure.
In Nigeria alone, used vehicle imports accounted for 80 per cent of all vehicle sales in 2016; in Kenya, more than 96 per cent of vehicles imported in the same year were used vehicles. ADVERTISEMENT The statement from China’s Ministry of Commerce noted the huge growth potential in the global second-hand car export market.