China February auto sales drop 0.2%

BEIJING -- China's auto sales dropped 0.2 percent year on year to 1.59 million units in February, an industry association said on Tuesday.

Vehicle output stood at 1.63 million units in the month, down 0.4 percent year on year, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.

In the first two months, auto sales totaled 3.91 million units, up 4.3 percent from the same period last year.

The monthly auto sales and output dropped sharply from January. February sales shrank 31.3 percent from January and output sunk 28.7 percent.

In breakdown, sales of passenger cars expanded 6.4 percent year on year to 1.39 million in February. Sales of commercial vehicles, including buses and trucks, shrank 30.9 percent to 196,600.

Sales of new-energy vehicles quadrupled to 6,045 in February.

Auto exports shrank 4.3 percent to 514,000 in February from a year earlier.