The first seminar on automobile market in 2023 under the exchange platform of multinationals on China automobile market was held in Beijing on Feb 10. Xu Changming, SIC’s Vice President and Zhu Baoliang, SIC’s Chief Economist attended and delivered the keynote speeches. Yao Xiaoying, Director of Public Relations of Nissan Group of China made the speech. Staff from units of public relations, strategic planning and marketing from a dozen of global passenger vehicle companies attended the seminar including Daimler, BMW, Toyota, GM, Ford, Honda, Hyundai, Volvo, Landrover, Renault and Stellantis. Liu Ming, Deputy Director-General of Informatization and Industry Development of SIC hosted the seminar.

Xu reviewed development of automobile market since the outburst of COVID-19 in 2020, and emphasized good effects of incentives for automobile consumption on the second half of 2022, in particular, enthusiasm of consumers ignited by halving the vehicle purchase tax on passenger cars. It is expected that auto sales will rebound in the first quarter of 2023, while a slow recovery in the second quarter with an outlook of ‘low to high’ for the whole year. He said that emerging of domestic brands have presented an eye-catching performance in recent years with the improvement of product competitiveness and rising market shares especially in the new energy sector. We can expect further breakthroughs made by local car brands in 2023. China’s auto export has maintained fast growth on the high base of 2021 with destinations in the middle east and African countries. The total volume of auto export in 2023 will remain at a high level.

Zhu introduced China’s short-term economic performance, and made an analysis on trend of macroeconomic policies in 2023. He said that the economy has been marginally improved since the late December in 2022 after the wave of Covid-19 infections peaking at an unexpected speed. The face-to-face consumption rebounded during the Lunar New Year holiday, in particular, the evident growth of tourism, catering and audience watching movies. The economic growth in 2023 will bounce up with factors including optimized measures of epidemic control, recovery of market confidence, and lower base in 2022. The annual growth of GDP will reach above 5 percent. Among which, fiscal policy and monetary policy will complement each other with an overlying effect, for example, it is necessary to keep a certain amount of special local bonds, support infrastructure investment with interest subsidy, invest in technological upgrading of manufacturing sector, and maintain MSMEs’ access to credit. All of these strengths will push forward a stable and sound growth of the economy.

Attendants listened to speeches and made in-depth interaction and exchanges on topics. Staff from SIC’s economic consulting center attend as well.