China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) said that auto sales in China fell 8.2% in 2019, a second consecutive drop in the world's largest auto market. A total of 25.8 million vehicles were sold last year. Sales in 2018 were off 2.8%.

Total auto sales fell 0.1% in December from the same month a year earlier, to 2.7 million vehicles. Sales have now dropped for 18 months in a row. Sales of new-energy vehicles, which includes electric cars, were down 4.0% in 2019 from a year earlier, to 1.2 million, after a 62% surge in 2018. The sector started to decline after subsidies were cut by more than half in June.