China's car sales fall in July

BEIJING - Car sales in China dropped in July, with 1.808 million vehicles sold last month, down 4.3 percent year-on-year, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) said Monday.

The decline narrowed 5.3 percentage points from June, said Chen Shihua, an assistant to the secretary-general of the CAAM.

Meanwhile, car sales in July fell 12.1 percent compared with June, according to Chen.

In the first seven months, the country sold a total of 14.132 million vehicles, down 11.4 percent year-on-year, Chen said.

Vehicle output amounted to 13.933 million in the January-July period, down 13.5 percent from one year earlier.

In addition, new energy vehicles also saw a year-on-year decrease in sales last month, Chen added.

CAAM data showed that the sales of new energy vehicles maintained an overall steady growth in the January-July period, surging 40.9 percent year-on-year to 699,000.

Xu Haidong, another assistant to the CAAM secretary-general, predicted that consumers' wait-and-see attitudes will change with the implementation of a sequence of favorable policies and the emergence of more models that meet new emission standards.