A sluggish Chinese economy could reduce growth to 7% by the end of 2014
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Signs of a slowdown? Image: At a recent industry conference, secretary general of the China Association of Automobile Manufactures Doug Yang forecast growth would halve this year to around 7%, compared to 13.9% growth in 2013.
The industry body had predicted a slowdown in growth to 8.3% earlier on in the year and has yet to make any official revisions, however the signs indicate that the breakneck speed of growth previously enjoyed by manufacturers is now slowing.
At the same conference, however, Nissan head Carlos Ghosn told reporters he was still fundamentally “very optimistic” and that the slowdown would likely be a brief dip in a long-term period of sustained growth. Nissan’s China sales fell 20% year-on-year in September.
CAAM data shows sales have grown 7% in the first three quarters of 2014, compared to economic growth of 7.3% in Q3.