Haval explores "The place of the Rising Sun"

No, the Chinese SUV giant didn't make a trip to Japan; "The place of the Rising Sun" is the name of one of South Africa's most beautiful provinces, Mpumalanga, the setting for the 2019 Haval Outreach Expedition. The name means just that in Swazi, Zulu, Tsonga and Southern Ndebele, the place where the sun rises.

The 2019 expedition started off in Johannesburg where two Haval H9's, two Haval H6C's, the all new Haval H6 1.5 Turbo Luxury and a GWM Steed 5E Double Cab bakkie made the trip up to Nelspruit to meet up with Sa motoring journalists from around the country to start the first leg of the expedition. Meeting media at the quant and bush lodge like terminal building that is the Kruger Mpumalanga International Airport were the team of Havals and GWM ready to accept the eager press into their luxurious interiors for a few days of glorious driving and amazing scenery.

On The evening of Thursday 6 June, the top brass of the South African Motor Industry congregated at the glass cathedral of vehicle asset finance that is the home of Wesbank for the annual NADA DSI awards. In layman's terms, the National Automobile Dealers Association, dealer satisfaction index awards. The National Automobile Dealers' Association (NADA) is a professional body representing the interests of business persons who own, operate and manage new passenger and commercial vehicle franchise motor dealerships and qualifying used vehicle only outlets in South Africa. With dealer members representing the various motor vehicle brands countrywide, NADA operates through a structure of member-elected regional and national committees. In all forums, NADA is the fully representative and respected voice of the retail motor industry in South Africa.

Saturday 1 June was somewhat of a special day for Haval Motors South Africa. May marked the brand's second anniversary since they started trading in South Africa as a wholly owned subsidiary to founding company, Great Wall Motor Corporation. To celebrate this auspicious occasion, Haval/GWM invited their customers to a family day dubbed "The Haval-GWM Harvest Day" hosted at the venue Africa Land just outside Hartbeespoort and west of Pretoria.

When Haval started trading in May 2017 as a wholly owned subsidiary in South Africa, the brand had three dealers and started with a clean slate in terms of sales figures. Since then more than 14 000 have been sold in South Africa. In May of 2018, Haval and GWM sold roughly 600 cars into the domestic market. In May 2019 Haval GWM sold over 900 units to South Africans. Haval and GWM currently have 46 South African dealers and 4 in Neighbouring countries namely Namibia, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Mauritius. The Brand is aiming to have 57 dealers by the end of the year in South Africa alone. This growth and accelerated expansion is nothing short of miraculous and the pride in the brand was quite clear on every Harvest day goers face.

This past weekend saw the area of Pelindaba known more for the nuclear power plant and the exquisite rocky outcrops as well as its picturesque beauty come alive with amateur athletes from all ages taking on the The LEGENDRUNNER event. Legend Runner is a spectacular and legendary obstacle Race catering for everyone of all ages and walks of life with 3 amazing distances to choose from and what's more it is absolutely family friendly.

Depending on skill and fitness level, entrants had the choice of entering 5km, 8km or the ultimate, 16km obstacle course which took the entrants over obstacles, through mud holes and various other muscle stretching and body tingling challenges. Haval Southern Africa is a proud sponsor of the Legend Runner series and National Sales Manager Jay Jay Botes had this to say about the event "Haval and GWM are built tough and robust as well as agile and that's why we thought it was an obvious synergy for us to sponsor this event. What's more is it's family orientated which is what we believe in namely family values and showcasing our range of bakkies and SUVs at the events all over SA was an easy decision to make."

The Belt and Road Initiative is an initiative between the Government of the People's Republic of China and the dominant transnational economic belt created in 2013. It covers countries and areas along the Silk Road and the Maritime Silk Road historically passing through mainland China, Central Asia, North and West Asia, the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean coast.

On April 24 the 4th "Belt and Road" International Forum hosted by Phoenix TV was held in Beijing. The theme of this forum was "SDGs on Belt & Road". Hundreds of representatives of international organizations, senior executives of enterprises and the government participated in the event to discuss the development and overseas expansion of Chinese enterprises in the process of practicing the "Belt and Road" Initiatives. During the event, Wei Jianjun, Chairman of Great Wall Motor Company Limited, together with Liang Guining, Director of the Institute of Foreign Investment and Cooperation of the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation of the Ministry of Commerce, Fang Qiuchen, President of China International Contractors Association (CHINCA), Wu Zhong, Secretary-General of the Finance Center for South-South Cooperation and other leaders and guests attended the event and discussed the way forward for Chinese enterprises to promote sustainable development through globalization.

Following the release of the off-road version with three differential locks, snorkel, winch and other professional off-road configurations, Great Wall Pickup released the interior pictures of the passenger version of its all new product series on April 8. It also revealed that this pickup is positioned as an international passenger pickup. It is China's first pickup model equipped with an 8-speed automatic transmission and multi-link rear suspension, starting a new era of Chinese passenger pickup.

On April the 2^nd, Great Wall Pickup officially revealed that their all new pickup series would be launched at the Shanghai International Automobile Industry Exhibition on April 16^th 2019. Great Wall Pickup also released two official pictures of the off-road version and said that this all new off-road pickup will be equipped as standard equipment with off-road specific configurations such as a front winch, three differential locks (front, middle, and back) as well as a snorkel, parts and features that are normally aftermarket accessories with most brands.

Great Wall Pickup, the leader in the Chines pickup industry, made another big move recently. This all new Great Wall Pickup will officially break cover making its global debut at the upcoming Auto Shanghai to be held in April 2019 according to an informed source. The Chinese powerhouse released a series of photos of a new pickup model online. These images show that the new model adopts a new front style and grille, nothing like anything released before from the Chinese mark. The trapezoidal air-inlet grille adopts an intricate decorative style. The headlights also feature a very sharp and futuristic styling that melts and integrates into the front bumper which makes the front of the vehicle stand out stylistically showing off its own personality and highlighting a new generation of bigger, better more advanced GWM pick-ups. When viewing the vehicle from the side, the wheel hubs sport a multiple spoke design wheel adding to the creative styling of the vehicle. The cylindrical and highly sporty roll bar adds to the aggressive stance and styling of this all new cutting edge design.

"Haval is not just another Brand, we are very customer orientated, as we truly understand that without happy customers, we simply don't have a business." This was the opening line to the welcome message from National Sales Manager, Tyrone Alberts when he addressed the Western Cape Haval and GWM owners at the recently held owners weekend for the area.

GWM made its debut in the South Africa pick up market in March 2007. For the past 12 years, the GWM brand has gathered fans with our highly affordable and superb quality Single and Double Cab bakkies. The GWM brand has grown consistently over the years and so has our product range. We are now proud of a stable sporting an urban SUV and four different Steed models with multiple variants. Most recently we launched the all new Steed 5 facelift that has been met positively by the South African public.

Leading in China, Aiming for the world!

HAVAL global cumulative sales have exceeded 5 Million units.

On January 13, with the theme of "Leading in China, Aiming for the world", the HAVAL Global 5-million-sales Celebration Ceremony and Global Strategic Conference was held at the HAVAL R&D Center in Baoding. HAVAL owners, Chinese and foreign experts, partners and over 500 media from all over the world gathered to share HAVAL's success and joy at the company reaching the Global 5-million-sales cumulative sales mark and witness the release of the "521" Globalization Strategic Blueprint of the SUV powerhouse, a map of the future plans to increase the brands global footprint.