With this year's rebound in auto sales continuing, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) expects total vehicles sales for 2009 will grow 8.7 percent year-on-year to 10.2 million units.

 

Sales of passenger vehicles for the year, meanwhile, are expected to reach 7.45 million units; up 10.2 percent from 2008.

 

The global downturn caused auto sales growth for 2008 to slow to 6.7 percent, ending years' of double-digit expansion.

 

Thanks to a halving of purchase tax in January on cars with small engines, passenger vehicle sales have been strong so far this year.

 

Sales of micro cars have grown fastest. In the first four months of the year, sales in the segment surged 43.3 percent from a year earlier to 602,700 units.

 

Sales in other segments have been weaker. In the same period, sales of sedans increased 10.4 percent to 200,700 units while those of SUVs rose 6.7 percent to 150,800 units.

 

MPVs were the only segment to record a sales drop. Only 66,200 MPVs were sold across China in January to April, down by 12.4 percent year-on-year.

 

Due to slumping exports and slowing domestic consumption, China's value-added industrial output only grew 5.1 percent in the first quarter, down by 11.3 percentage points.

 

Affected by a slowdown in the growth of domestic industry, commercial vehicle sales dropped 3.9 percent from a year earlier to 100,520 units in the first fourth months.

 

The CAAM expects the domestic industrial sector to recover later this year. It predicts that commercial vehicle sales will climb 5 percent year-on-year to 2.75 million units.