音頻在線播放：


點擊下載音頻

China's Automobile Production Reaches 10 Million Units

In 1956, China's first modern automobile factory, First Automobile Works, began production. Its production for the first year was only 1,500 units. Fifty-three years later, China now has more than 100 automobile manufacturers and its yearly production is expected to surpass 12 million units in 2009.

Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp is one of China's major automobile factories. This is the company's director Hu Maoyuan:

"The first million units cost Shanghai Volkswagen 13 years to accomplish; the second million units cost 4 years; the fourth million units costs 3 years and the fifth million units only costs us 1.5 years. It indicates China's automobile industry is accelerating at an increasing pace."

In the past 3 decades, China's share of global automobile production increased from 0.4 percent to 13.4 percent. While the global automobile industry is suffering from the financial crisis that broke out in 2007, the sale of China's major automobile manufacturers reached nearly 900 billion yuan in the first eight months of 2009.

However, the automobile sales increase in first tier markets such as Guangdong and Shanghai has slowed this year, but the second and third tier markets such as Anhui, Henan and Sichuan have seen rapid progress. Qin Lifeng owns an automobile shop in a suburb of Chongqing.

"China started to give subsidies to rural citizens to buy vehicles early this year. The sales in my shop increased rapidly in May and June. I sold more than 30 units in September alone."

Yang Yu, commentator of China Central Television says China now is no doubt one of the best automobile markets in the world, but he has some concern about the future of the industry.

"China implemented a series of measures to stimulate its domestic automobile consumption, but the effects will fade as time goes by. And foreign investment will evacuate when the foreign markets recover from the economic crisis. My third concern is China's automobile industry is in need of possible change in the future. The production line we are building now might soon be out of date and become surplus."

Commentator Yang Yu says China's automobile design and production technique is still low grade. New energy vehicles are the industry's future, whether China is able to grab this chance is another question.