Last
year, every fifth car sold in the world was electric. China is leading
the charge: every tenth car on the country’s roads is electric, and it
accounted for 40 percent
of global electric car exports in 2024. While the West is using customs
duties to try to head off an influx of Chinese electric cars, the
countries of Central Asia have taken the opposite approach and are doing
everything they can to welcome them.
Despite
the geographical proximity, Chinese brands were not always so popular
in Central Asia. As recently as in 2020, China supplied just $750
million worth of cars to all five Central Asian countries put together.
These were mainly used cars with internal combustion engines. But by
2024, that figure had soared to almost $10 billion, of which $1.1 billion were electric cars. Now cars account for about 10 percent of all Chinese exports to Central Asia.
This
uptick came about because of a fortunate combination of circumstances.
First, the region is experiencing a demographic boom, and both
purchasing power and demand for cars are growing. There are over 100
cars per 1,000 people in all of the Central Asian states except for
Tajikistan. Kazakhstan is even catching up with Russia, with 308 cars
per 1,000 people compared to Russia’s 331.
Central
Asia also plays a role as a reexporter of cars to the Russian market,
which saw an exodus of Western companies after Russia’s invasion of
Ukraine in 2022. It’s more expensive for Chinese exporters to supply
cars directly to Russia than Central Asia, since customs duties are
three times lower in Kyrgyzstan, for example. As a result, Kyrgyzstan,
which has no automobile industry of its own, has since 2022 become the second-largest supplier of cars to Russia after China.
The
growth in demand in Central Asia has coincided with a surge in supply
from China. Beijing is using subsidies and tax breaks to encourage its
manufacturers to sell more electric cars both domestically and abroad.
Chinese automakers are so keen to increase sales that they are willing
to resort to some outlandish schemes, such as selling new cars as used ones with zero mileage.
This state support is paying off. In 2022, BYD—the biggest Chinese maker of electric cars—overtook the U.S. Tesla in terms of global sales, and in 2025, it also made more profit and sales than Tesla on the world’s third-largest market: the European Union.
In Asian countries too, such as Vietnam, Malaysia, and Thailand, about
three-quarters of all electric cars purchased in 2024 were Chinese.
Central
Asia is also part of this trend. In Uzbekistan, 99 percent of all
imported electric cars come from China, and in Kazakhstan, sales of
Chinese brands are growing by 50 percent a year, displacing traditional
market leaders such as Hyundai, Kia, and Chevrolet.
Environmental concerns are also a factor in the growing popularity of electric vehicles. Dozens of environmental protests take place in the region every year, and Tashkent, Bishkek, Almaty, and Dushanbe regularly top the global rankings of cities with the worst air quality in winter.
Accordingly, regional authorities also support electric cars as part of the green agenda. In Kazakhstan there is zero customs duty on electric cars through the end of 2025, while in Kyrgyzstan there are import discounts, and in Tajikistan they are exempt from taxes and import duties through 2032.
Still,
even all these favorable conditions put together are not enough to sell
cars. The key factor in China’s success is that Chinese brands have
managed to adapt to local business conditions and find a unique approach
to each country.
Historically,
Central Asia has not been of particular interest to global automakers.
The region has usually been seen as an add-on to the larger Russian
market: nearly all the global brands opened offices in Russia and
localized production there.
With
the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine and the introduction of
sanctions, that strategy had to be changed: dozens of car brands left
Russia, and their presence in other post-Soviet markets had to be adapted to the new circumstances, including for resale to Russia. In 2024, a record
number of cars were sold in Kazakhstan—more than 200,000—while the
total figure for Central Asia was 700,000, comparable to Russia’s 1.5
million.
The most attractive car market in Central Asia is Uzbekistan, which is second only
to Russia in the post-Soviet space in terms of the scale of its
automobile industry. For decades, Tashkent used high customs duties to
protect its monopoly car manufacturer Uzavtosanoat and its international
partners (first South Korea’s Daewoo, and later the U.S. General
Motors).
Since
2020, however, a second major automaker, ADM Jizzakh, has emerged as a
separate entity from Uzavtosanoat. It now produces cars designed by
several Chinese brands: Chery, Great Wall Motor, JAC Motors, and BYD
(this is BYD’s first assembly plant outside of China). A year after that
plant was launched, BYD successfully lobbied
for a fourfold increase (to about $6,000) in the “recycling fee” (a
future scrappage fee) paid when importing electric cars. Since BYD is
the only company producing electric cars inside the country, it is
exempt from the recycling fee and effectively has a monopoly on
Uzbekistan’s electric car market.
Unlike
Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan are both members of the
Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), and were initially viewed in
China primarily as countries for reexport to Russia. During the last
three and a half years, about 236,000 cars—mostly Chinese—were reexported from those countries to Russia. But the Russian government’s increase in the recycling fee on cars cleared through customs in EAEU countries last year closed that loophole.
Still,
the interest of Chinese manufacturers in the markets—especially
Kazakhstan—did not disappear. Chinese producers have been able to offer
their new electric cars at prices that are often cheaper than used cars
that run on gasoline. In 2024, almost half of all cars sold in
Kazakhstan were Chinese brands, and the number of electric cars in the
country has increased more than thirty times since 2022. Now three Chinese automakers (Chery, Great Wall Motor, and Changan) are launching assembly plants there.
Tajikistan
is Central Asia’s smallest car market, with just fifty-five cars per
1,000 people, though here, too, Chinese brands have found their niche.
Instead of expanding using market methods, China has relied on diplomacy
and lobbying.
In 2022, Tajikistan exempted
electric car imports from taxes and duties, and the following year,
President Emomali Rahmon’s son Rustam, who is both speaker of the upper
house of parliament and mayor of the capital Dushanbe, signed an
agreement with the Chinese for the construction of an electric car
plant. He subsequently decreed
that by September 2025, all taxi services in the capital must use
electric vehicles. Considering that the vast majority of electric cars
in the country are Chinese, the direct beneficiary of such decrees is
China.
For
decades, China’s lack of expertise and experience in Central Asia meant
it faced problems in the region, such as business conflicts and
resistance from the public to a Chinese presence. But the success of
Chinese carmakers shows that the country’s businesses have come to
understand their neighbors better. Investments in specialized Chinese think tanks that study Central Asia are having an impact, along with the thousands of people from the region who have studied in China.
China is also expanding its presence in other areas.
By 2025, there were more than 11,000 enterprises with Chinese capital
in the region, which is 13 percent of all enterprises with foreign
capital in Central Asia.
The
dominance of Chinese electric cars there is part of a general trend in
which Chinese brands are conquering ever larger shares of the region’s
tech markets. Previously, Central Asian countries tried to diversify
their electronics suppliers in a bid not to become dependent on a single
exporter. Now such a policy is too expensive and makes no sense.
China’s
technology monopoly is rapidly making it a necessity for the Central
Asian countries to integrate into their giant neighbor’s tech ecosystem.
Electric cars are not just an alternative to cars with internal
combustion engines; they are also the next stage of the industry’s
development, which will bring new technologies.
Accordingly,
by entering this new stage of development of the automotive industry
via Chinese electric cars, Central Asia will eventually be forced to
adopt Chinese standards for the industry’s development: the entire
infrastructure of electric charging stations, servicing, the replacement
and disposal of batteries, and in due course, standards for driverless
cars. That will ultimately spread to the level of management: first of
municipal infrastructure, and then the nationwide transport system,
leaving no room for competitors.