China's passenger car sales growth slowed to 5.4 percent in July from June's 5.8 percent and May's 24 percent rise, as increasing fuel costs deterred consumers from making purchases.
Sales of passenger cars, multipurpose vehicles and sport- utility vehicles rose to 332,600 units last month, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers said in a statement today. Production expanded 12 percent from July last year to 367,000 units, it added.
Drivers in China, the world's second-biggest energy consumer, are delaying purchases because of increasing vehicle running costs. Retail prices for the most common type of gasoline have risen by about 15 percent this year to 5.09 yuan (64 cents) per liter in Beijing, after the government twice increased prices.
``Consumers are concerned about rising oil costs and they need some time to see what happens before they go back to the showrooms,'' said Dong Jianhua, an analyst with Southwest Securities Co. in Beijing. ``The growth may pick up in the following months.''
Car buyers are also waiting for new models and more discounts. To help lure consumers, automakers added more than 60 new and revised models in the first half and cut prices by 2.42 percent on average from a year earlier, the National Development and Reform Commission's price monitoring arm has said.
General Motors Corp., Volkswagen AG, Chery Automobile Co. and other automakers in the country sold a total of 2.85 million passenger cars in the first seven months, 32 percent more than a year earlier, while car production rose 36 percent to 2.97 million units, the association said.
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