On January 12, Zhao Lei took a 13-hour flight from Brussels to Beijing. A day later, the construction entrepreneur was preparing himself for an even longer journey from Tianjin, a large port city near the Chinese capital, to his home in western China. Mr Zhao had just returned from a seven-nation tour of Europe with his wife, their first trip outside China, and was now in the market for a status symbol popular among the country’s aspiring middle classes — an imported Audi Q7 sport utility vehicle. Rather than buy a Q7 from an authorised, nearby Audi dealership, which would cost at least Rmb828,000 ($134,000), according to the German manufacturer’s suggested China retail price, Mr Zhao had travelled to the country’s largest automotive market for “parallel imports” in Tianjin. There the same model, imported from the US by an unauthorised dealer, would cost him just Rmb660,000 including shipping costs and import duties — a 20 per cent saving. “A friend told me about this market, so I decided to come by and take a look,” Mr Zhao told the Financial Times. “I will start the drive back to Yinchuan this afternoon. It’s a 1,200km trip and will take 16 hours.” In distance terms, Mr Zhao’s journey from Tianjin to the capital of Ningxia province was the equivalent of driving from New York to Chicago. Over the past year, multinational car manufacturers have been the targets of an investigation into allegedly anti-competitive pricing practices by Chinese regulators. More recently, they have had to pay large rebates to dealers who say that slower annual car sales growth — 10 per cent last year compared with 16 per cent in 2013 — is eroding their profitability. The growth of parallel car imports will put further pressure on car companies in the world’s largest car market. This is especially true for manufacturers of premium brands that sell more cars in China than in any other market and reap an even greater share of their global profits there. “They’re trying everything they can to keep [parallel imports] under control,” says Max Warburton at Bernstein Research. “But from what you can see with your own eyes in Tianjin, it’s very difficult to button down market forces.” Until they were formally legalised by the Chinese government in August, markets for parallel car imports operated in — at best — a quasi-legal grey area. About 83,000 cars were imported through such channels in 2013, according to the Chinese Automobile Dealers Association, compared with overall passenger-vehicle sales of 18m that year. The Tianjin market accounted for more than 80 per cent of parallel car imports. In addition to the Audi Q7s that Mr Zhao was eyeing, the market’s halls were full of brand new BMWs, Land Rovers, Maseratis, Mercedes and even monster Ford pick-up trucks. Many still bore stickers from the dealerships where they were originally purchased, in locations as far afield as Abu Dhabi, California, Maryland and Pennsylvania. Others sported certificates from motor vehicle registries in Colorado and Texas. With their legal status now clear in China, parallel car imports are surging. Official 2014 volume estimates are not yet available for the nascent market. But Wang Hua, who runs one of the dozens of small dealerships at the Tianjin market, said that he sold about 20,000 SUVs last year — most of them Toyota Prados imported from the Middle East. Last week, Shanghai’s new free-trade zone issued its first regulations governing parallel car imports, paving the way for the emergence of another large supply channel. Mr Wang’s Prados are priced at Rmb380,000, or 10 per cent below the Rmb420,000 that he says Toyota’s authorised dealers charge for comparable models. Most of his sales are to sub-dealers, suggesting that smaller parallel import markets are proliferating across the country. As he spoke, Mr Wang was regularly interrupted by calls from buyers. “We only have one car of that kind left and another person wants it too, so you may have to pay more,” he told one caller. “But I will give it to you if your offer is more or less all right, OK?” Publicly, at least, multinational carmakers are reluctant to criticise the rise of China’s new parallel import markets, whose low prices are popular with both buyers and government officials intent on reducing the high cost of many goods and services. Car companies instead say that the more expensive vehicles sold through their authorised dealers, unlike ones rerouted from the US or Middle East, are manufactured to exact Chinese standards. 1月12日，赵烈经过13个小时的飞行后，从布鲁塞尔抵达北京。一天后，这位从事建筑业的企业家就要踏上一次更长的旅程，从港口城市天津出发，回到他位于中国西部的家乡。 赵烈和妻子刚完成了一趟欧洲七国游，这是他们首次出国旅游，现在他又想买一辆进口奥迪(Audi)Q7运动型多功能车(SUV)。这款车被视作社会地位的象征，深受有追求的中国中产阶层的欢迎。 赵烈没有在家乡的奥迪授权经销店购买Q7，根据这家德国汽车制造商对中国的建议零售价，那儿的售价至少是82.8万元人民币（合13.4万美元）。他去的是位于天津的中国最大的平行进口汽车市场（以下简称“天津市场”）。在这里，经未授权经销商从美国进口的同款型号汽车售价仅为66万元人民币（包括运费和进口关税在内），便宜了20%。 赵烈对《金融时报》说：“一个朋友跟我说过这个市场，所以我决定顺便过来看看。我今天下午开车回银川，全程1200公里，要花16个小时。”以距离来算，赵烈从天津到宁夏省会的这趟旅行，相当于从纽约开车到芝加哥。 过去一年，中国监管机构发起了一场所谓反垄断定价调查，跨国汽车制造商成了调查目标。最近，制造商不得不付给经销商大额返点，因为经销商说汽车销量年增长速度变慢（2013年为16%，2014年为10%），侵蚀了他们的盈利能力。 平行进口汽车的增长将对这个全球最大汽车市场里的车企带来进一步压力。对于高端品牌汽车制造商来说更是如此，他们在中国的汽车销量超过在其他任何一个市场的销量，从中国市场获得的利润占全球总利润的比例也比其他品牌汽车制造商更高。 伯恩斯坦研究公司(Bernstein Research)的马克斯•沃伯顿(Max Warburton)说：“他们正尽一切努力来控制（平行进口汽车）。但从你在天津亲眼所见的情况来看，市场力量是很难压制住的。” 去年8月中国政府正式赋予平行进口汽车合法地位，在此之前，平行进口汽车市场充其量算一个准合法的灰色地带。根据中国汽车流通协会(Chinese Automobile Dealers Association)的数据，2013年乘用车总销量为1800万辆，而经由平行进口渠道进入中国的汽车有约8.3万辆。天津市场占全国平行进口汽车市场的逾80%。 除了赵烈看上的奥迪Q7，天津市场的大厅里还停满了崭新的宝马(BMW)、路虎(Land Rover)、玛莎拉蒂(Maserati)、梅赛德斯-奔驰(Mercedes)，甚至还有福特(Ford)的大怪物皮卡。许多车身上还贴有原经销商的标签，显示它们的原始购买地点远至阿布扎比、美国加州、马里兰州和宾夕法尼亚州。还有一些汽车亮出了美国科罗拉多州和得克萨斯州的机动车辆登记证书。 如今平行进口汽车在中国的法律地位得到明确，它们的数量正迅速飙升。该新生市场还没有可用的2014年官方估计销量数据。不过天津市场上几十家小经销商之一王华表示，去年他售出了约2万辆SUV，其中大多为从中东进口的丰田(Toyota)普拉多(Prado)。近日，上海新的自贸区出台了首项对平行进口汽车进行监管的政策，为另一条大型供应渠道的形成铺平了道路。 王华的普拉多标价38万元人民币，他说同款车型在丰田授权经销商那儿售价42万元人民币，比他贵了10%。他的大多数买家都是二级分销商，说明更小的平行进口汽车市场正在全国各地铺开。 王华说话期间常被来自买家的电话打断。他在电话里对一位买家说：“这种车型我们只剩一辆了，还有一个客户也想要，你可能得加价。只要你报价差不多我就卖给你，好吗？” 跨国汽车制造商至少不愿公开批评中国新崛起的平行进口汽车市场，其低廉的售价同时受到买家和政府官员两方面的欢迎，后者一心想要把许多商品和服务的高昂价格降下来。 车企的说法则是：通过授权经销商所售的车辆虽然较贵，但它们是完全按照中国标准制造的，与经由美国和中东进口的那些汽车不同。 大众(Volkswagen)旗下的奥迪(Audi)表示：“原则上，奥迪提倡公开、公平的竞争。经过奥迪在华经销商认证的车辆，从配件、底盘、到动力总成，都符合当地消费者在舒适方面的偏好，适应当地特殊的气候条件和驾驶状况。” 沃伯顿对这种说法持怀疑态度。他说：“即使（为不同市场制造的同款汽车）存在任何‘官方认可’的差异，这种差异绝对也是细微的，而且多半无关紧要。如果能便宜30%，为什么不买（平行进口汽车）呢？要是我就会买。”
