China’s car sales fall in July

Automobile sales in China got the year’s worst decline in July from June while keeping stable year-on-year growth, according to statistics released by the China Association of Automobile Manufactures (CAAM). The statistics showed that the sales of passenger cars dropped 17.02% in July from June but still went up 6.79% year-on-year. Included were basic model cars, multipurpose vehicles, sports utility vehicles and crossover passenger cars, with respective sales falling 16.78%, 18.91%, 19.67% and 16.48% in July from June. Market contraction is due to the traditional off-season of July combined with soaring oil prices, and traffic control during the Beijing Olympics period. The newly released official data also indicate that the overall retail volume of Chinese-made cars was 387,000 units in July, up 2.5% year-on-year. (August 18, 2008)