Declines in China's car production, sales narrow in Jul: CAAM

SHANGHAI, Aug 13 (SMM) – China's production and sales of automobiles continued to shrink in July but with smaller year-over-year declines, showed the latest data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM). 

Last month, production of cars came in at 1.8 million units, down 5% on the month and 11.9% on the year. Auto sales decreased by 12.1% on the month and by 4.3% on the year, to stand at 1.81 million units in July. The year-on-year declines in production, sales narrowed 5.4 and 5.3 percentage points, respectively, from that in June. 

CAAM data also showed that sales of passenger vehicles lost 3.9% from a year ago and stood at 1.53 million units in July. 

In January-July, domestic production and sales of cars amounted to 13.93 million units and 14.13 million units, respectively, down 13.5% and 11.4% from the same period last year. The declines were some 0.2 and 1 percentage point smaller than that in January-June. 

Separately, sales of new energy vehicles across Chinese markets also dropped in July, the first full month after the new subsidy scheme took effect.