China's passenger car sales accelerated 21.3 percent year on year last month from a 22.4-percent growth in September, according to an automotive industrial organization.

Chinese car makers sold a combined 490,474 passenger cars including sedans, multi-purpose vehicles, sport-utility vehicles and mini vans in October, the Union of Passenger Car Market and Information said yesterday.

"The growth slowed a bit from September because working days in October were four days less compared with other ordinary months, due to the National Day holiday," said the union's secretary-general Rao Da. "But it does not mean a slowdown trend as the average daily sales rate last month was even higher than in September."

Sales of SUVs surged 74.9 percent from a year earlier to 34,799 units last month against a 17.9 percent rise for cars to 356,344 units. Delivery of MPVs also grew 16.5 percent to 16,324 units.

For the first 10 months of this year, total sales of passenger cars in China jumped 22.1 percent to 4.86 million units.

FAW Volkswagen maintained its ranking as the top seller last month with 38,841 units sold, followed by Shanghai General Motors' 36,113 units and 32,649 units for Shanghai Volkswagen.

(Shanghai Daily November 9, 2007)