Ministry of Commerce: Auto Sales of This Year will Increase Slowly while Keeping Stable

On the regular news conference of Ministry of Commerce on April 27th, Mr. Sun Jiwen, the news spokesman, gave explanations for auto sales status of the first quarter of this year and the issue of Management Method for Vehicle Sales.

Since the management method was issued by Ministry of Commerce of the PRC on April 14th, it has been paid great attention to and discussed hotly by automakers, dealers, online automotive retailers and all sectors of society. Sun Jinwen stressed that, to list Management Method for Vehicle Sales will help to promote the market competition, improve the efficiency of circulation, optimize the supply of automobile market, improving the quality of automobile consumption and to better play the role of the pillar of automobile consumption.

It is noticeable that, domestic auto sales of the first quarter increased about 7%, a peak value since 2014, which far surpassed the market expectation and higher than an annual increase of 5% expected by China Association of Automobile Manufacturers(CAA). According to data from CAA,the production and sales volumes of domestic vehicles in the first three months were 7,133.1 thousand units and 7,002 thousand units respectively, a year-on-year growth of 7.99% and 7.02%; among which the production and sales volumes of passenger cars were 6,107.3 thousand units and 5,947.6thousand units, a year-on-year growth of 6.84% and 4.63%; The production and sales volumn of commercial cars were 1,025.7 thousand units and 1,054.5 thousand units, a year-on-year growth of 15.37% and 22.85%. The automobile industry of our country keeps growing fast.

Mr. Sun Jiwen said that, the rapid growth of automobile industry is profit from increased demand of domestic auto market, especially increased transport demand of bulk commodity and the build of more and more infrastructures. Sales of commercial cars in the first quarter increased 22.9% year over year, among which sales of trucks surged 30.1% year over year, contributing to the whole sales of vehicles. While sales of passenger cars, which accounted for 85% of the total car sales, only had a year-on-year growth of 4.6% during the first quarter, lower than the expectation.

It is expected that, auto sales of the whole year will increase slowly but keep stable.