CAAM sees little improvement in Aprildeliveries

China’s new light-vehicle market loststeam in March after expanding for three straight months, with production and shipments upended by restrictive measures widely adopted by local governments to contain a spike in coronavirus cases.

Deliveries of new sedans, ccrossovers, SUVs,multipurpose vehicles and minibuses slid 0.6 percent to 1.86 million llast month the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers said on Monday.

Minibus sales advanced 34 percent tto around45,000, while sedan deliveries edged up 0.2 percent to some 872,000.

But multi-purpose vehicle sales slumped 24percent to some 71,000, while the volume of crossovers and SUVs edged down 0.1percent to about 876,000.

First-quarter sales of new light vehiclesindustrywide rose 9 percent to approach 5.55 million on strong volume generatedin January and February.

The market for new commercial vehiclessuch as trucks and buses continued shrinking in March amid a slowing domesticeconomy. New commercial vehicle sales plunged 44 percent to some 370,000 lastmonth, with year-to-date volume slipping 32 percent to roughly 965,000.

Overall sales of new vehicles industrywidefell 12 percent to around 2.23 million in March, with year-to-date deliveriesinching up 0.2 percent to 6.5 million.

Volkswagen Group, Toyota Motor Corp.,Tesla Inc. and Nio Inc. are among automakers forced to idle output in recentweeks as governments impose strict lockdown measures to contain rising COVIDcases.

"The recent pandemic situation hasbeen quite severe and so the figures in March were not too good, and wecurrently do not see much improvement in April," said Chen Shihua, theassociation's deputy secretary general.

He added automakers are pressing thegovernment for supportive measures such as lower taxes on auto sales.

Because a large number of cities includingShenzhen and Changchun have adopted complete or partial lockdowns to curb viraloutbreaks, dealerships in 25 of 90 cities were forced to temporarily close downin March, according to a survey conducted by the China Passenger CarAssociation.

In Shanghai, dealerships have been closedsince April 1.