China subsidized the sale of 38,000 motor vehicles under its old-for-new trade-in subsidy program in October, up 5.6 percent from September, the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) said Thursday.

The October figure took total auto sales under the program from January to October to 284,000 vehicles, according to a statement on the MOC website.

In the first ten months of the year, the government handed out 4 billion yuan (600 million U.S. dollars) of subsidies to new car buyers, who spent 32.6 billion yuan (4.89 billion U.S. dollars) buying those vehicles.

China launched the auto trade-in subsidy program in July 2009 and began accepting old vehicles in exchange for subsidies on new vehicle purchases in order to boost new auto sales and help cut emissions.

In June this year, China extended the one-year program, which was due on May 31, for another seven months to December 31, 2010.