Shanghai(ZXZC)- China's auto production and sales for the year of 2020 is forecasted to recover to the year-ago level, Meng Wei, a spokeswoman for China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said at a press conference held on Dec. 16.

Meng Wei, spokeswoman for China's National Development and Reform Commission; photo credit: NDRC

To revive the auto industry that was heavily hit by the coronavirus pandemic, Chinese government timely rolled out a slew of policies to stabilize auto market and boost auto consumption. Partly thanks to those incentives, the auto industry has been showing fast recovery and continuous growth since April onwards. According to Meng Wei, the year-on-year decrease has contracted to around 3% in both auto outputs and sales for the first eleven months. During the same period, the income of main businesses, total profit and value added all grew from a year ago.

Meng noted NEV industry faced a substantial downturn in the first-half of 2020, while started rebounding from July. In November, NEV production and sales volumes amounted to 198,000 and 200,000 units, surging 75% and 105% respectively over the previous year.

She added the 2020's China auto industry is likely to recover to the prior-year level, of which some main economic indicators like the value added will be higher than that of the previous year. Moreover, both annual auto outputs and sales may reach roughly 25 million units, remaining flat year over year, and the NEV industry is expected to exceed the 2019's performance in both production and sales.