China October auto sales jump on tax cut: industry group

Auto sales in China surged nearly 12 percent in October from a year ago, after the government cut a purchase tax on some vehicles to revive the world’s biggest car market, a domestic industry group said Wednesday.

Auto sales jumped 11.79 percent to 2.22 million units last month, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) said in a statement, as sales growth extended a rebound from September.

China cut purchase taxes by half on passenger cars with small engines, effective from Oct 1.

“The policy’s implementation has strongly boosted sales of passenger cars with engines of 1.6 litres and less,” the industry group said. China’s auto sales had previously fallen for five months through August as the world’s second-biggest economy sputtered. The country’s economic growth hit a 24-year low of 7.3 percent in 2014 and has slowed further this year, slipping to 7.0 percent in each of the first two quarters.

In the July-September period, China logged its worst economic performance since the global financial crisis, with gross domestic product rising just 6.9 percent.

For the first ten months on this year, China’s auto sales gained 1.51 percent year-on-year to 19.28 million vehicles, CAAM said. (AFP)