DID IMPORTED CARS REALLY GET CHEAPER? CHINESE CARS AND THE AVERAGE CUSTOMS VALUE OF PASSENGER CARS IMPORTED INTO KAZAKHSTAN, 2015-2025

Abstract

Chinese cars have become the largest part of Kazakhstan's car imports, and a common explanation is that they are simply cheap. In this study I used UN Comtrade data on passenger cars (Harmonized System heading 8703) to check how China's share and the average customs value of an imported car changed between 2015 and 2025. According to Kazakhstan's records, China supplied 2.0% of imported passenger cars in 2015 and 69.1% in 2025, and the average value of an imported unit fell by 39% between 2023 and 2025. However, three checks showed that most of this fall does not describe real cars. First, in 2025 Kazakhstan recorded 72,366 units, most of them from China, that weighed about 180 kg and were worth about 670 US dollars each, which is not possible for a passenger car. China itself recorded no exports to Kazakhstan in this subheading, but recorded 65,688 motorcycles of 250-500 cm³, so these units are most likely light vehicles classified differently by the two countries. Without them, China's share of cars was 56.5% and the average value fell by 16%, while the average weight of a car did not change. Second, inside the same engine groups, Chinese cars became about 12% cheaper in Kazakhstan's records and about 17% cheaper in China's own records, so this part of the fall is real. Third, for South Korea and Germany the average value fell by 67% and 47% in Kazakhstan's records but rose by 9% and 11% in the exporters' records. The results show that Kazakhstan's car import statistics should not be used without checking subheadings and mirror data, and that the idea that Chinese cars pushed prices down explains only a small part of the change.

Keywords: car imports, unit values, mirror statistics, UN Comtrade, China, Kazakhstan

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Дәйексөз келтіру үлгісі

Yerboluly M. DID IMPORTED CARS REALLY GET CHEAPER? CHINESE CARS AND THE AVERAGE CUSTOMS VALUE OF PASSENGER CARS IMPORTED INTO KAZAKHSTAN, 2015-2025 // Central Asian Scientific Journal. – 2026. – No. 4(32), Vol. 1. – Pp. 91–98.