China's passenger car sales rose 26.77 percent in August from a year earlier, the fastest pace in eight months, according to China Association of Automobile Manufacturers yesterday.

Sales of cars, multi-purpose vehicles, sport-utility vehicles and crossovers in China accelerated to 481,300 units last month, the official automotive monitoring watchdog said in an e-mailed statement.

Buoyant sales were boosted by MPVs, which rose by 42 percent to 19,000 compared with a 24.43-percent increase for cars to 372,200 units during the same period. Delivery of SUVs surged 76 percent to 296,000 units.

FAW Volkswagen was the best seller last month with retail sales of 42,367 units in China, followed by Shanghai Volkswagen's 40,088 units and Shanghai General Motors's 38,378 units.

Sales of Shanghai Volkswagen's Passat Ling Yu surpassed 10,000 units after offering discounts to compete against Toyota's Camry and Honda Accord in the mid-to-high sector.

China's passenger car sales rose 30 percent to 5.18 million units last year, exceeding the 25-percent increase of the total vehicle market, CAAM said.

The top 10 best-selling car models last month were Santana, Jetta, Excelle, Camry, QQ, Focus, Xiali, Polo, Elantra and Corolla, which saw combined sales of 121,300 units, accounting for 33 percent of total sales.

Market share for Chinese-owned brands, including QQ, Xiali and Free Cruiser, remained unchanged at around 22 percent, with total sales of 83,400 units.

For the first eight months, sales of passenger cars rose 24.1 percent to 4.02 million units, beating the average 20-percent growth forecast for the whole year.

In another separate report from the Union of National Passenger Car Market Information, production expanded 20.7 percent to 425,701 units for August from a year earlier.

The rising stock markets on the Chinese mainland helped investors fund purchases of cars last month when they withdrew capital from the securities market over fears that the bull market may not last, the Shanghai-based union said.

The Shanghai Composite Index, which tracks yuan-denominated A shares and US-dollar B shares, surged more than 98 percent this year, making it the world's best-performing primary index.

(Shanghai Daily September 11, 2007)