MOSCOW, December 26. /TASS/. Global car companies such as Germany's Mercedes and BMW may become history within ten years, Russian presidential aide Maxim Oreshkin voiced such an opinion in an interview with the Expert magazine.

"Now we talk a lot about how the Chinese auto industry is taking over the Russian market. But this is happening not only in Russia. China has become the number one exporter of cars in the world. I would not be surprised if in ten years such companies as Mercedes and BMW will go to history. As brands they will probably remain, but they will follow the fate of Volvo, which was sold to China," he said.

In other words, they will actually cease to be European cars, he believes.

"Because European manufacturers now have neither a sales market nor the advantage in technology that they had five to ten years ago," the aide to the Russian president noted.

Car export from China

According to Chinese customs data, from January to October, China exported $9.4 billion worth of passenger cars to Russia. For China, Russia is the largest automobile market. The second largest market for China is Belgium (exports from January to October reached $5.2 billion), the third is the UK ($4.8 billion).