Carmakers like Dongfeng, Chery and BYD are eyeing production sites in Europe to assemble the next generation of electric vehicles as a foil against the EU’s protectionist tariffs as a brutal price war at home drives more producers offshore in search of fresh markets.
China’s widely watched gross domestic product (GDP) figure beat expectations in the first three months of the year, but retail sales growth dropped in March and property investment fell by 9.5 per cent in the first quarter.