Given the impact of the international financial crisis, industry insiders had long given up the hope that China would realize a vehicle sales volume of 10 million in 2008. However, an annual sales growth rate of merely 6.70% was still surprising to many.

According to the latest statistics released by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers on January 12, in 2008 the number of vehicles manufactured in China was 9.3451 million and the number of vehicles sold stood at 9.3805 million, recording growth rates of 5.21% and 6.70% year-on-year respectively, down by 16.81 percentage points and 15.14 percentage points compared with the same period the previous year.

The sales volume growth of 6.70% not only marks a new low in the last 10 years, but it is also lower than the growth rate of China's GDP, for the first time in the last decade.

However, in 2008 the Chinese automobile market still outperformed those in developed countries such as the US, Germany and Japan. Statistics show that in 2008, the gross sales volume of the US automobile market declined by 18% year-on-year, the number of new license plates in Germany decreased by 1.9% year-on-year and the sales volume of new sedans, trucks and passenger cars in Japan dropped by 6.5% year-on-year, reaching the lowest level since 1974.

By People's Daily Online