Gasgoo.com (Shanghai February 18) - According to statistics from the Guang Zhou Automobile Sales Association, 1.01 million new vehicles were registered in the province of Guangdong last year, the Nanfang Daily reported. The figure, which was announced at last week's 2012 Guang Zhou Automobile Sales Association Summit, is only 2.36 percent higher than that of the previous year. Passenger automobiles accounted for 848,300 of those registrations. 242,000 of those were made in the provincial capital of Guangzhou.
The phasing out of economic stimulatory policies, rising price of fuel and increasing manufacturing costs are all attributed as factors behind the declining automobile market last year. With those factors and others still present, 2012 looks to be another tough year for the industry, with passenger automobile sales growth estimated to be around ten percent.
According to Xu Changming, senior economist and director of the State Information Center's Information Resource Department, growth rates in key passenger automobiles segments exhibited noticeable decreases last year, almost stopping entirely in the second quarter. With the phasing out of favorable government policies, Mr. Xu does not expect that trend to completely vanish this year, though he believes that the market will maintain a growth rate of between 12 and 14 percent.
However, the forecast is particularly bleak for commercial vehicles, with Mr. Xu predicting a growth rate of between three and four percent this year, slightly less than 2011.
