China saw auto sales rise last year for the first time since 2017, helped by a 1.5 times expansion in NEV sales, reports Reuters. Total sales in the world’s largest car market grew 3.8% year-on-year, after monthly sales of 2.79 million units in December brought total sales for 2021 to 26.28 million, data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) showed.
Production and sales are expected to be better in 2022 than last year on the prospect that issues such as chip shortage and high prices of raw materials ease, CAAM said in a statement.
After decades of upbeat growth, China’s car market started contracting in 2018 under pressure from the phasing out of some tax cuts, a trade war between Washington and Beijing and amid the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic.