Ukraine adds China's Geely to list of international sponsors of war

China's Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co., Ltd, known as Geely, has been listed as an international war sponsor by the National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP), according to the agency's website.

The reason for the decision was that Geely continues to pay taxes to the budget of Russia and, accordingly, sponsors the war against Ukraine.

"There were no attempts by the company's management to condemn Russia's war against Ukraine," the report said.

Geely is privately owned by Chinese billionaire entrepreneur Li Shufu and owns several brands, including Geely Auto, Lynk & Co, Zeekr, Volvo Cars, Polestar, Lotus, London Electric Vehicle Company, Farizon Auto, CAOCAO Mobility. In the Fortune Global 500 list of the world's largest companies for 2022, Geely took 229th place.

The company continues to present and sell new models of cars of its brand in the Russian Federation. As of May 2023, the network of official Geely dealers is present in 89 Russian cities and has 157 dealer centers.

Daniel Lee, the executive director of the Geely holding company, said that he did not want to tell his companies to leave the Russian market. He personally supported the car brand's decision to increase car sales in the Russian Federation after global competitors withdrew from the market following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, according to NACP.

Sales of cars under the Geely brand in Russia in the first three months of 2023 more than doubled compared to last year – from 5,543 to 12,673 pieces.

The distributor of the Geely brand in Russia is Geely-Motors LLC, whose revenue for 2022 increased by 82% to $800 million, and net profit by as much as 5105% to $201 million. More than $51.4 was paid to the budget of the Russian Federation million taxes.

The official distributor of Geely in Ukraine has car showrooms and service in Kyiv, Vinnytsia, Dnipropetrovsk, Lviv, Odesa, Poltava, Khmelnytskyi and Cherkasy oblasts.

On May 9, 2023, the National Agency on Corruption Prevention included the Chinese automobile company Great Wall Motor in the list of war sponsors. It became the fourth company from China to be included in the "black list" of the NACP, after Comnav Marine (production of navigation equipment), China State Construction Engineering Corporation (construction), Xiaomi Corporation (production of electronics).

This very month it became known that Geely Holding invested $290 million in the British manufacturer of sports cars Aston Martin.