November 20, 2008

China auto import growth slows down in 5 months of 2008

According to General Administration of Customs, growth in China's auto imports slowed down in the first five months of this year, thanks largely to a compulsory coding system for standardizing vehicle purchase from abroad.

The customs said between January and May, China bought 171,000 motor vehicles from abroad, a growth of 59% YoY on the same period of last year. The arrivals were valued at USD 6.26 billion up by 74.9%. The import growth rates, however 15.7 percentage points lower than the first quarter level.

The total imports included 71,000 motor vehicles bought from Japan, up by 100% and 57,000 from the European Union up by 54%. The growth rates were 19 percentage points and 13 percentage points, respectively, lower than the first quarter level.

The January to May period saw off road vehicles imports soar 91% to 87,000 units nationwide or 50.9% of the total auto arrivals. The growth rate was 32 percentage points higher than that for the total imports, while the proportion was up from the 42.4% level a year earlier.

China car imports went up 29.6% to 65,000 units or 38.2% of the total down by 8.7 percentage points.