By Trefor Moss The Wall Street Journal Fri., Nov. 9, 2018 SHANGHAI—The slump in China’s automotive sector dragged on through October, with year-over-year sales down for the fourth straight month. Auto sales last month were off 12% from a year earlier to 2.38 million, the government-backed China Association of Automobile Manufacturers said Friday. With that, 2018 turned negative: Sales for the first 10 months were down 0.1% from 2017. Sales were down 12% in September, and 4% in both July and August. Unlike during past slowdowns, the Chinese government has declined to intervene to stimulate the market with tax cuts. Some industry analysts say that is likely to change soon, as Beijing works to pump up an economy weighed down by burdens including the trade fight with the U.S. The manufacturers’ association, however, said a tax cut isn’t the answer. Article Continued Below “We do not advocate short-term stimulus measures. We support long-term policies that can help the industry to grow at a slow and steady pace,” said Shi Jianhua, the association’s deputy secretary-general. Passenger-car sales were down 13% in October, to 2.05 million, and 8% for the third quarter. That puts them off 1% for the first 10 months of the year, on course for their first yearly decline in nearly three decades. Sales of commercial vehicles were down 3% last month to 333,000, but that still left them up 5.5% for the year through October. Electric vehicles were the sole area of growth last month, with sales up… [Read full story]
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