Thursday, February 24, 2000 China's car production maintains double digital growth in 1999 BEIJING: China's car production reached a record 565,366 units in 1999, accounting for 20.39% of the national total output of motor vehicles. Statistics show that the country turned out 565,366 cars and sold 570,410 units in 1999, rising 11.52% and 12.29% respectively over the previous year. High-grade cars with displacement exceeding two liters demonstrated strong growth. The output of Audi, Hongqi, Accord and Buick cars reached 54,927 units in 1999, accounting for 9.30% of the total car production, or doubling the output of 24,425 units in 1998. Due to the sharp increase in production of Shanghai Buick and Guangzhou Accord, which reached 23,290 and 10,008 units respectively in 1999, the output of other brands, such as Audi and Hongqi, demonstrated a downward trend in recent years. The output of Audi was 5,898 units in 1999, 6,015 units in 1998, and 6,789 units in 1997, and that of Hongqi was 15,731 in 1999, 14,951 in 1998, and 18,060 in 1997. At the same time, the production of medium-grade cars such as the Santana progressed slowly, while the Jetta and Citroen tried hard to snatch a bigger market share. Since 1997, the production of Santana has been locked at a level of about 230,000 units, and its market share dropped from 47.85% to 46.34% and further to 40.85% in 1999. The production of Jettas increased from 43,869 units in 1997, to 60,085 units in 1998 and 75,566 units in 1999, while the market share grew from 9.11%, to 11.85% and 13.27% in the three years, respectively. Dongfeng-Citroen also recorded a rising trend in the three years. The growth for cars with displacement of less than 2 litters was slow, indicating grim prospects. The output was 131,970 in 1997, 143,178 in 1998 and 154,433 in 1999, with the market share standing at 27.40%, 28.23% and 27.32% in the three years, respectively. But the production of Xiali (Charade) increased greatly to reach 95,155 units in 1997, 100,021 in 1998 and 101,828 in 1999, playing a big role in the sector. Asia Pulse.
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