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Joyce Man

Dmitry Sereda has  not one  but three mainland-made vehicles. 'I love Chinese cars. They're really cheap,' he said. 'And the quality is not bad.'

The 34-year-old Muscovite was not so pleased with a Xinkai SRV that he later sold but swears by the engine, steering, traction and leather seating of his Safe SUV, made by Hebei-based Great Wall Motor and his M2 by Shenyang-based Brilliance Auto.

Mr Sereda is one of thousands of Russians choosing mainland cars of 'not bad' quality for their cheap price. Sales tripled year on year to 22,000 units last year.  Production is set to expand  30 times from  last year's levels to more than 450,000 vehicles per year by 2010, PricewaterhouseCoopers car  industry partner Stanley Root wrote in July.

Avtomir, Russia's largest dealership, sells 500 mainland-made vehicles each month. Inkom-Avto, a leading chain, sold 2,538 mainland cars last year.

Russians in the fastest-growing budget market see mainland sedans, at prices of US$9,000  to US$11,000, as a value for money buy.

The Chery Amulet, retailing for US$9,132 at Inkom-Avto, undercuts South Korea's US$12,830 Kia Spectra and is on par with France's US$9,832 Renault Logan - Russia's second-most popular model.

Given a choice of domestic models at the same price, like the AvtoVAZ Priora (US$10,660) and the GAZ Volga (US$11,419), Russians would rather buy a foreign brand.

'[Still], the metals are low-grade and the design outdated and overly simple,' said Yury Glumov, director of NAMI,  a car research centre that represents Russia at international safety-standardisation bodies.

The mainland-manufactured vehicles were comparable in quality to Russian cars - which tend to break down - and  close to those impoirted from South Korea but were far behind those from Japan, said Andrei Kolesnkov, Inkom-Avto's spokesman representing  mainland companies.

Even so, said Yevegeny Mezhov, director of  mainland car sales at Avtomir, Russians were happy to find in mainland cars the basics they wanted: hydraulic engines, power steering, turbochargers and air-conditioning.

Extras such as  dual air bags, global positioning  and audio systems take a back seat.

That was why,  it was meaningless to compare mainland cars with German, Japanese and South Korean ones, Mr Glumov said.

'For the bottom market, it's a logical buy.'



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