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QINGDAO TODAY
在线翻译:
szdaily -> Business -> 
Car market growth slows in smaller cities
    2018-11-29  08:53    Shenzhen Daily

WHEN Cao Jun, 40, an engineer from the city of Pingdingshan in Henan Province, takes his old, gray MG 3 car to be serviced, he always steals a few moments to pop into the Nissan and Honda dealerships next door.

But the Civic and Sylphy sedans in the showrooms are just eye candy. Cao wants to upgrade his car, but he’s facing a steep loan repayment on his flat, medical bills for his wife and a tough local economy in his once-prosperous coal town.

Cao is not alone. China’s car market, the world’s largest is on the brink of its first sales contraction in almost three decades, according to industry data.

The slowdown is being most sharply felt in smaller, provincial cities like Pingdingshan, the engines of growth for Chinese consumption of cars and an array of consumer goods.

The country has long hoped to spur consumption in these provincial cities as a way of diversifying an economy long reliant on manufacturing. But a slump in consumption spending is already being seen in things like cinema ticket sales, online shopping and smartphones purchases.

Cutbacks on car purchases by Cao and others like him in China’s smaller cities, are hitting local car dealers and global automotive makers from General Motors to Volkswagen.

“The main slowing markets now are those smaller cities in China,” said Xu Haidong, assistant secretary general at the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.

Consumers and car dealers in Pingdingshan all painted a similar picture.

“The situation here is really bad. We sold 40 percent fewer cars in October than September,” said Zheng Shuke, a manager at an SAIC-VW dealership near a busy freeway outside Pingdingshan. “This is very unusual in the six years I’ve been an auto dealer.”(SD-Agencies)

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