By Yang Zhongyang
Statistics published by China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) recently show that in April China produced 1,647,600 cars and sold 1,624,400 cars, a decrease of 12.4 percent and 11.7 percent respectively compared with the previous month and an increase of 7.8 percent and 5.2 percent respectively year on year. From January to April this year, total automobile production amounted to 6,431,900 units, an increase of 0.47 percent compared with the same period of last year; and total sales amounted to 6,417,500 units, a decrease of 1.3 percent compared with the same period of last year.
"It is in conformity with historic pattern that production and sales in April are lower than that in March", said Chen Shihua, director of the Information Department of CAAM. Chen Shihua suggested that because of this month's obvious growth over that of the same period of last year, the aggregated production of automobiles from January to April turned from negative growth in the first quarter to positive growth, and the decrease in sales narrowed.
In terms of vehicle types, in April, passenger vehicles achieved production and sales of 1,305,300 units and 1,276,000 units respectively, a decrease of 10.4 percent and 8.9 percent compared with the previous month, both slower than the decrease rates of the industry as a whole; compared with the same period of last year, production and sales of passenger vehicles grew by 13.6 percent and 12.5 percent respectively, 5.7 and 7.3 percentage points higher than the growth rates of the entire industry. Compared with the previous month, all types of passenger vehicles witnessed negative growth; in comparison with the same period of last year, apart from the decrease of minibus, other types of vehicles have all enjoyed growth to various extents, with the growth of sedan and SUV being more obvious.
In April, commercial vehicles achieved production and sales of 342,400 units and 348,400 units respectively, decreasing by 19.4 percent and 20.6 percent over the previous month; compared with the same period of last year, production and sales decreased by 9.6 percent and 15 percent. Of all the commercial vehicle types, all kinds of cargo vehicles suffered significant decrease, either compared with the previous month or with the same period of last year, with semi-trailer towing truck even decreasing by more than 30 percent. The performance of passenger vehicles (including incomplete vehicles) was passable, with production and sales slightly lower than the previous month and steadily higher than that of the same period of last year.
In the first four months of this year, passenger cars achieved total production of 5,074,100 units and sales of 5,049,100 units, increasing by 4.0 percent and 1.9 percent year on year. The growth rate of SUV exceeded 20 percent, either in terms of production or sales, making it the best-performing passenger car type. The growth of sedan was stable, slightly slower than the overall growth rate of all passenger cars; production of MPV decreased slightly, while sales grew by 3 percent; both production and sales of minibus were lower than that of the same period of last year. Commercial vehicles achieved production and sales of 1,357,800 units and 1,368,400 units, decreasing by 10.8 percent and 11.6 percent respectively year on year. Production and sales of commercial passenger vehicles were both higher than that at the same period of last year, while decreases of cargo vehicles were quite obvious.
"Production and sales statistics indicate that operation in the first four months of this year has been stable", said Yao Jie, deputy secretary-general of CAAM. Yao Jie suggested that monthly production and sales data showed that production and sales from February to April were better than that of the same period of last year, the monthly weight curve was better than that of last year, and that there were obvious signs that the whole industry has stabilized and been picking up.
Yao Jie said that the statistics also indicated that the industry's effort in adjusting the structure of the industry had been yielding results. Firstly, the concentration degrees of the top 5 companies and the top 3 companies increased significantly; secondly, export of automobile were very good, with monthly export exceeding 80,000 units, which was closely linked to enterprises' vigorous effort to explore the overseas market and growing demands for China's automobiles in foreign markets; thirdly, production and sales of SUV were outstanding, with monthly absolute growth exceeding 100,000 units from January to April; and fourthly, the development of the auto industry has been shifting from active control to market guidance and motivation step by step.
"General speaking, the overall conditions are still favorable for the development of the auto industry". However, Yao Jie pointed out that in the current macro economic climate there were still some unfavorable factors that were affecting the development of the auto industry, including significant fluctuation of the price of major raw materials, the appreciation of RMB, credit crunch, sluggish real estate industry and stock market, and slipping profits caused by climbing labor and energy costs. "Particularly, the surge of financial cost of the auto industry causes interest expense to increase rapidly, bringing rather great financial pressure to the development of enterprises".
In order to maintain the stable operation of the auto industry, some experts have brought up some advices: first, maintain the continuity and stability of policies, including the promulgation of policies that provide guidance for vehicle to adopt energy conservation and emission reduction, and taxing policies that guide development should be formulated with long-term perspective; second, the development status of China's domestic auto brands is grim, and comprehensive measures, including government purchase, publicity, and tax policy guidance, should be adopted to guide the development of domestic brands; third, unswervingly stick to punishing overloading and speeding; fourth, make further effort to encourage scrubbing of old cars and promote "vehicle trade-in"; fifth, carry out practical measures to encourage export, examples including giving conveniences to enterprises with high credit level in custom clearance, and providing policy support to such enterprises in such aspects as overseas sales network, outlets distribution, and products certification, R&D, and overseas intellectual property rights registration.
