Wednesday 8 April 2009

Mainland auto sales jump to 1.03 million in March

Preliminary figures show auto sales in mainland rose to at least 1.03 million in March, exceeding US sales for the third month in a row, state media reports said on Wednesday.

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Guanyu said...

Mainland auto sales jump to 1.03 million in March

Associated Press in Shanghai
8 April 2009

Preliminary figures show auto sales in mainland rose to at least 1.03 million in March, exceeding US sales for the third month in a row, state media reports said on Wednesday.

Sales data from 14 major auto makers, accounting for roughly 90 per cent of total sales, totalled 1.026 million, the state-run newspaper Shanghai Securities News said, citing Chen Bin, head of the Department of Industry at the central economic planning agency.

Full industry data due to be released by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers in coming days could push March auto sales in mainland, the world’s second-largest auto market, to a monthly record, the report said.

Mainland’s industry-wide auto sales in March last year totaled 1.06 million, it said.

Americans bought 857,735 new vehicles in March, down 37 per cent from the 1.36 million sold in the same month a year earlier, according to Autodata Corp.

But a 25 per cent jump in sales from February raised hopes that the worst may be over for an industry battered by global economic malaise and financial catastrophe.

Mainland is bound to eventually overtake the US as the world’s largest auto market, and the recent developments have accelerated that trend, with mainland’s vehicle sales in January and February exceeding US monthly sales for the first time ever.

Mainland’s first-quarter sales may exceed those in the US, Mr. Chen told a shipbuilding conference in Beijing. Sales for the full year are forecast to exceed 10 million units for the first time ever.

Automakers and shipbuilders are among 10 strategically vital industries singled out by Beijing for special support this year as the country battles a slump in demand for its exports.

To help spur auto sales, the government halved taxes on purchases of small autos and is spending 5 billion yuan (HK$5.67 billion) on subsidies for purchases of light trucks and minivans in the countryside, where most of its 1.3 billion people live.

Partly as a result of those policies, the vehicle sales rose 25 per cent in February from a year earlier.