Even by Chinese standards, Great Wall Motor Co. is still a small automaker. But what the company has recently achieved will provide food for thought for its domestic peers seeking to enter developed markets.

Chinese passenger vehicle brands did not come into being until the late 1990s. Within a decade of creating them, however, many automakers behind those brands were seeking admission to developed markets such as Western Europe and America.

Between 2005 and 2007, a slew of own brand Chinese automakers including Chery Automobile Co. and Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co., Hebei Zhongxing Automobile Co. and Changfeng Motor Co. displayed their vehicles at overseas auto shows.

In addition to participating in both Frankfurt and North America auto shows, Shengyang Brilliance Jinbei Automotive Co. sent its sedans for crash tests in Europe in 2006 and 2008, but the ratings they received were very low.

After recognizing the difficulty of meeting the stringent safety and emission standards of the European and American markets, in late 2008 most of these companies gave up plans for selling their products into these markets in the near future.

This year some of them started chasing merger and acquisition opportunities as a short-cut to markets of the developed world. Earlier this year, Beijing Automotive Industry Holding Corp. bid for Opel but failed. Geely is running after Volvo Car but has yet to make any meaningful progress.

Great Wall's approach has been different; more low key yet more persistent.

The company sold about 125,000 vehicles in 2008, about half of which were exported to other developing markets. But it has yet to send its products for exhibitions in developed countries.

Instead, Great Wall has been focusing its efforts on building and upgrading its vehicles in order to certify them for those markets.

In June this year, it started exporting two of its pickups and one SUV to Australia after certifying them for the market there.

Earlier this month, the company completed the one-year long process of certifying four of its models for the European Union; the Florid and Coolbear sedans, the Hover 5 SUV and the Wingle pickup. It succeeded in obtaining the EU's Whole Vehicle Type Approval for them.

It is the first time a domestic Chinese automaker has cleared all the regulatory hurdles to get its vehicles into the single European market.

This year, the company also started preparations to design cars in line with U.S. safety and emission standards in a bid to certify them for the American market.

True, although it has had its vehicles certified for the European market, Great Wall still needs to get a distribution network ready and do a lot of marketing work to before it can sell its products.

But in the race to crack western auto markets, Great Wall is well ahead of its domestic peers, due to the incremental yet solid progress it has made.