Chery Auto vehicle sales hit record high in Jan

Chinese car maker Chery Automobile Co Ltd sold 35,000 units of vehicles in January, the highest January sales figure in its 12 years of history, the company announced today.

Analysts attributed the booming sales to the government policy, adopted in January, to encourage the purchase of economy cars with smaller engines.

The purchase tax on vehicles with engine capacity of less than 1.6 liters was cut by half by the government, starting on Jan 20. As a result, small passenger cars in this segment became the only group with rising sales in passenger car segment in January.

Chery management said the compay had to pay its workers for working overtime during the entire holiday week for the Chinese lunar New Year (Jan 25-31), when its daily sales hit a record of 3,000 cars.

The average engine capacity of Chery vehicles is 1.2 liter, while most of the Anhui-based company's products are equipped with engine of capacity less tan 1.6 liters.

During the week-long Spring Festival holidays, the daily sales of Chery automobiles hit 3,000 units high.