Overall auto sales in China are expected to drop 3 percent this year and return to growth next year, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the regulator of China’s industrial sectors including automobiles.
“According to institutions’ forecast, the decline in auto sales and production this year will be around 3 percent, with sales approaching 25 million (units),” said Huang Libin, a spokesman for the ministry, at a press conference in Beijing Thursday.
He didn’t identify the institutions.
Thanks to effective control of the coronavirus outbreak in China and government policies to revive the domestic economy, incomes of the public are increasing and their confidence in consumption has improved, Huang noted.
“That in turn has pushed auto consumption to grow,” he said.
“Next year auto sales in our country are expected continue to recover and post positive growth,” he added.
The 3 percent decline Huang cited at the press conference is a more optimistic forecast for China’s auto sales in 2020 than the one made by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers earlier this month.
When releasing industry-wide sales numbers for September on October 13, the industry body predicted that China’s auto sales, which tumbled 42 percent in the first quarter amid the viral outbreak, would end 2020 with a fall between of 4 percent to 7 percent.
In September, China’s auto sales maintained growth for the sixth straight month, advancing nearly 13 percent from a year earlier to some 2.57 million deliveries.
For the first three quarters, industry-wide sales fell 6.9 percent to roughly 17.12 million, according to the industry association.
