Photo: Workers assemble a car at a workshop of FAW-Volkswagen Automobile Co., Ltd. in Changchun, northeast China's Jilin Province, July 9, 2019. (Xinhua/Xu Chang)
BEIJING, Sept. 21 (Xinhua) -- China's automobile market maintained recovery trend in September and the retail sales of passenger vehicles in the month are expected to increase by about 8 percent year-on-year, according to China Automobile Dealers Association (CADA).
The CADA forecast shows the better-than-expected recovery in the domestic automobile market, meaning policies that promote the automobile consumption have paid off.
Data of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) showed that China's automobile output increased 6.3 percent on year to 2.119 million units in August and sales up 11.6 percent on year to 2.186 million units.
It is worth noting that the output and sales have achieved year-on-year growth for five consecutive months. In particular, the domestic automobile sales have maintained a growth rate of more than 10 percent year on year for four consecutive months.
The CAAM data also show that in the first eight months, the output and sales of automobiles in China stood at 14.432 million units and 14.551 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 9.6 percent and 9.7 percent, respectively. However, the decline in the output and sales narrowed by 2.2 percentage points and 3 percentage points, respectively, compared with those in the previous seven months.
Xu Changming, deputy director of the State Information Center, said that despite the big drop in the accumulative output and sales, the recovery in the domestic automobile market has far exceeded expectations. Since April this year, the recovery rate of car registrations in China has continuously increased year-on-year. In July this year, the year-on-year recovery rate of car registrations reached 116.8 percent.
Xu attributed the better-than-expected recovery to the forward purchases of automobiles for convenient travel due to the favorable policies for automobile consumption amid COVID-19 epidemic.
CAAM pointed out that with the achievements in the coordination of the epidemic prevention and control and economic and social development, the market confidence has tended to increase. In this context, the recovery in the automotive industry continues to improve.
Some industry insiders expect the retail sales of the automobiles in the fourth quarter to maintain steady growth, given the traditional peak season for sales, favorable policies and the frequent marketing activities such as auto shows. (Edited by Hu Pingchao with Xinhua Silk Road, hupingchao@xinhua.org)
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