China remains world's biggest car producer & market for 2nd yr

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BEIJING: China, where gridlocks on highways and cities have become a major source of public concern, continues to be the world's biggest car producer and market for the second year, as its auto sales hit 18.06 million last year, registering a 32.37 per cent increase.

China's car output topped 18.26 million last year, an annual increase of 32.44 per cent, Zhu Yiping, associate secretary-general China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) said today.
The sales record last year was achieved because of China's stable economic growth, car consumption policies and the country's accelerated industrialisation and urbanisation, said Gu Xianghua, deputy secretary-general of the CAAM.

China's auto sales in December topped 1.67 million, up 17.9 per cent year on year. Output in December stood at 1.87 million vehicles, up 22.3 per cent year on year, official media reported.
Sales of passenger vehicles rose 33.17 per cent year on year to 13.76 million last year, while sales of commercial vehicles were up 29.9 per cent year on year to 4.3 million.

China overtook the United States in 2009 for the first time to become the world's largest auto market by selling 13.65 million vehicles, up 46 per cent year on year, while production jumped 48 per cent to 13.79 million.

But Chinese apparently were in no mood to celebrate their high rating in car sales as Beijing and Shanghai have already imposed heavy restrictions on buying cars as a measure to ease recurring gridlocks.

Beijing which already has about 5.10 million cars restricted new car sales to 2.40 lakh per year.

Shanghai also has a similar policy. About 215,425 people applied for car purchase licences in Beijing in January alone, but only 20,000 will be issued through a monthly lottery.
Beijing's measures to tame traffic jams would not affect car sales markedly as the city accounted for only a fraction of the country's annual sales, said Xiong Chuanlin, deputy secretary-general of the CAAM.

But other cities could follow suit in taming traffic by limiting car purchases or raising the cost of keeping cars, said Dong Yang, deputy director of the CAAM, adding these policies would affect sales of low-end, especially domestically-produced, brands.

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