SHANGHAI, Jun 11 (SMM) – China’s production and sales of automobiles both achieved double-digit growth in May, boosting optimism over the recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic.

Data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) showed that 2.19 million automobiles were produced and sold in China last month.

The production rose 4% from April to produce a year-over-year increase of 18.2%, much faster than the annual growth of 2.3% in the previous month.

The sales were up 5.9% on the month and 14.5% on the year, compared with a year-over-year increase of 4.4% in April, the first rise in 22 months.

For the first five months of 2020, China’s car production dropped 24.1% to 7.79 million units from the same period last year, while sales fell 22.6% to 7.96 million units, 9.3 and 8.5 percentage points, respectively, smaller than the declines seen in the January-to-April period.

NEV production and sales dropped from year ago

The CAAM, however, reported year-over-year declines of 25.8% and 23.5%, respectively, in China’s production and sales of new energy vehicles for the month of May.

China produced 84,000 NEVs last month, bringing the tally for January-to-May to 295,000 units, down 39.7% from the same period last year.

Sales of NEVs stood at 82,000 units for May, and the cumulative sales for January-to-May fell 38.7% year on year to 289,000 units.

The NEV market is “unlikely to see explosive growth” this year, the industry body predicts, as manufacturers are still “in the process of understanding and adapting to policies as well as consumer demand via adjusting products.”