GUANGZHOU: South China's Guangdong Province imported a total of 22,413 vehicles, valued at US$630 million, in the first seven months this year.

The figures represented an increase of 21.3 per cent and 49.5 per cent respectively from the corresponding months of last year.

But an official from Guangdong Customs yesterday said the pace for importing vehicles has slowed down this year, despite the continuous reduction of tariffs for foreign vehicles.

In the same period last year, the year-on-year growth rate for the number of imported vehicles and total value were 49 per cent and 71.8 per cent respectively.

The official attributed the slow pace to the appreciation of euro and Japanese yen that have led to price hikes for European and Japanese-made vehicles in the mainland market since the beginning of the year.

And the price reduction of many quality home-made vehicles, on the other hand, is attracting an increasing number of domestic residents to turn their eyes to mainland-made automobiles.

Meanwhile the outbreak of SARS in Guangdong in the first half of the year has also affected auto imports, the official added.

Sedan cars continued to be the major vehicles that Guangdong had imported this year, accounting for 54.5 per cent of the total, the official said.

The southern Chinese province imported a total of 12,223 sedan cars, up 13.7 per cent from a year earlier.

(HK Edition 08/20/2003 page7)