Just before the start of the May Day holiday, more than 4,000 car dealers from around the world packed their bags and traveled to Wuhu. This bustling city in east China’s Anhui Province serves as the main headquarters for Chery Automobile. The foreign visitors wanted to see firsthand the rapid growth and daily operations of China’s massive manufacturing sector. Hosting 4,000 international guests at one event shows exactly how much global interest Chinese car brands generate today.
Maria Pia Del Carmen Palacios Callegari traveled all the way from Chile to attend the 2026 Chery International Business Summit. This marked her very first trip to China. She walked through the enormous Chery factory and watched hundreds of intelligent robots build cars on the fast-moving production lines. She noted that Chinese automakers now easily meet global standards in both physical design and day-to-day manufacturing craftsmanship. After the factory tour, she told reporters that the advanced technology amazed her and gave her high hopes for deeper business ties.
Strong sales data supports her confidence in the market. Chinese factory workers have led the entire world in auto production and total sales for 17 straight years. The China Association of Automobile Manufacturers reported that companies built and sold more than 34 million vehicles last year. This new record means Chinese factories produced roughly 93,000 new cars every day. The massive volume creates new opportunities for global companies to profit and build a system where everyone wins.
Carlos Alberto Corro Martin, a dealer from Spain, believes working closely together offers the best way to launch a brand in a new country. He explained how Chery teamed up with the Spanish car brand Ebro to build and sell cars. This specific partnership directly creates local jobs for people living in Spain. Corro Martin said this deal perfectly illustrates how quickly China’s manufacturing footprint is expanding across international borders.
Selling cars to other countries now stands as Chery’s single biggest business focus. Zhang Guibing works as the executive vice president and general manager of Chery’s International Business Division. He shared specific figures with the visiting dealers. He stated that Chery currently sells and services cars in more than 130 different countries and regions. Since the company started exporting, workers have shipped exactly 5.85 million vehicles to overseas buyers.
Chery’s continuous growth highlights a much bigger trend unfolding across China right now. Factories across many industries are actively adopting green energy and smart technology. People can clearly see this major change at Wuhu Shipyard Co., Ltd. Global shipping companies are closely monitoring the shipyard because its workers build environmentally friendly vessels.
Early this year, a team of more than 10 representatives from Donstank AB, a well-known Swedish shipping company, visited the Wuhu shipyard. They traveled there to watch workers officially launch their brand-new 22,000-tonne product oil and chemical tanker into the water. Building a ship of this massive size requires incredible engineering skills and heavy lifting.
Zhang Zhao chairs the shipyard company and directs its daily operations. He said his engineering team now focuses heavily on building ships that run on both methanol and traditional fuels. These dual-fuel engines help significantly reduce pollution on the open ocean. His sales team wants to sell these green ships to niche markets, such as companies that transport liquid cargo across the cold Nordic region.
The shipyard also uses China’s strong supply chains and battery technology to build fully electric boats. The leaders recently opened a brand-new company focused solely on electric vessels. They plan to sell these battery-powered boats to overseas buyers. They already target island nations like the Maldives, where clean water is especially important.
Many Chinese companies currently follow this exact path, entering new manufacturing fields based on what they already do well. The government’s 15th Five-Year Plan for the years 2026 to 2030 actively guides this shift. The national plan pushes local companies to use more digital tools, upgrade their equipment to smart factory capabilities, and adopt green energy sources.
Chery also invests capital in new technology completely outside the car industry. The auto company currently backs AiMOGA Robot, a highly advanced robotics firm based right in Wuhu. At their main exhibition hall, foreign visitors gathered around a smart robot that reads human brainwave signals. The robot easily translates these invisible human thoughts into physical mechanical actions.
Buyers in more than 50 different countries already purchase these smart robots. Zhang Guibing stated that entering the robotics industry takes Chery one giant step closer to the industries of the future. He strongly believes Chinese manufacturers will find even greater growth opportunities abroad as they develop new products and work more closely with global partners.
