China will
provide preferential policies for rural residents, holding promotional
events from July to December in a bid to boost new energy vehicle (NEV)
sales in rural areas, according to a statement released by the Ministry
of Industry and Information Technology on Wednesday. During the
period, five promotional events will be organized for rural residents in
places including Qingdao in East China's Shandong Province, Haikou in
South China's Hainan Province, Kunming in Southwest China's Yunnan
Province, Chengdu in Southwest China's Sichuan Province, and Taiyuan in
North China's Shanxi Province, the statement read. The
preferential policies cover more than 10 NEV models including Beijing
Electric Vehicle's EC3, Anhui Jianghuai' s iEV6E, and Zhejiang Hozon's
NezhaN01, according to the statement. It did not reveal further details
of the policies, which will be set by local governments and NEV
companies. "The policy
will stimulate domestic consumer demand and optimize rural environments
by expanding clean energy development," Ji Hua, deputy general manager
of Aerospace Engineering Equipment (Suzhou), told the Global Times on
Wednesday. He added that
the policy encourages the NEV industry to pay more attention to rural
markets, helping the industry recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and
economic downturn. The domestic
NEV industry was hit hard by the epidemic. In February, its production
and sales both slumped by more than 70 percent on a monthly basis, with
production dropping to 10,000 units and sales to 13,000 units, per data
from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM). However,
the industry is showing signs of recovery as business is resuming. Vehicle
ownership hit 360 million nationwide, of which NEVs topped 4.17 million,
more than 360,000 units and up 9.5 percent from the end of 2019,
according to statistics released by the Ministry of Public Security on
Tuesday.
|