The State Council played a "combination fist" to stabilize automobile consumption

Recently, the National Bureau of Statistics released data that the total consumption of automobiles in the first quarter of this year was 1,073.9 billion yuan, down 0.3% year-on-year; while the Ministry of Finance data showed that the vehicle purchase tax in the first quarter reached 82.5 billion yuan, down 20.4% year-on-year.

In this regard, Xiao Zhengsan, vice president and secretary general of the China Automobile Circulation Association, said that since March, many automobile companies at the production end have announced the suspension or reduction of production, and the price increase of automobiles, especially new energy vehicles, has become a common phenomenon in the industry; the market passenger flow has shown a downward trend, and the terminal consumer demand has weakened.

Consumption is an important support for promoting economic growth. At present, due to the impact of the new crown pneumonia epidemic and other factors, consumption, especially contact consumption, has recovered slowly, in order to promote the sustained recovery of consumption, on April 25, the State Council issued the "Opinions on Further Releasing Consumption Potential and Promoting the Sustained Recovery of Consumption" (hereinafter referred to as the "Opinions").

When emphasizing the "breaking down barriers to restricting consumption", the "Opinions" made clear instructions on the existing problems that restrict the growth of the automobile market, "each region shall not add new car purchase restriction measures", "completely cancel the second-hand car relocation restriction policy", "promote the transformation of consumer goods such as automobiles from purchase management to use management".

Lang Xuehong, deputy secretary-general of the China Automobile Dealers Association, told the China Business Daily reporter that the policy is promoting the transformation of the automobile market from purchase management to use management, and promoting the further release of more automobile consumption potential.

All regions shall not add new car purchase restriction measures

It is understood that the current domestic cities that implement the automobile purchase restriction policy mainly include Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Tianjin, Shijiazhuang and Hainan Province.

Lang Xuehong told reporters that passenger car sales in the six restricted cities of "North, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen", Hangzhou and Tianjin accounted for about 15% of the total sales of passenger cars in the country, and the purchase restriction inhibited the release of automobile consumption to a certain extent. The industry and the policy level have repeatedly called on all localities to relax the purchase restrictions of automobiles and further release the demand for automobile consumption.

The relaxation of the purchase restriction policy was once again emphasized in the "Opinions". The "Opinions" pointed out that "all regions must not add new car purchase restriction measures, and areas that have implemented purchase restrictions should gradually increase the number of automobile incremental indicators, relax the qualification restrictions of car buyers, encourage the purchase restriction areas except for a few megacities to implement the differentiated policy of urban and suburban indicators, adjust the use of automobiles through legal, economic and scientific and technological means, gradually cancel the purchase restrictions on automobiles according to local conditions, and promote the transformation of consumer goods such as automobiles from purchase management to use management."

"In the past two years, more and more places have relaxed restrictions on car purchases. Now the state has made it clear that there can be no more new purchase restriction cities, and at the same time, the car purchase restriction policy is relaxed and cancelled according to local conditions, which provides a certain support for the release of automobile consumption demand. Lang Xuehong said.

Zhang Xiang, dean of the New Energy Vehicle Technology Research Institute of Jiangxi New Energy Science and Technology Vocational College, told reporters that the automobile industry is the leading industry in China's economy, and its contribution to the national economy has reached 15%, encouraging the lifting of purchase restrictions, opening up automobile manufacturing, terminal sales, automobile aftermarket and other internal circulation of automobiles, and promoting automobile consumption to drive national economic growth.

Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the All-China Passenger Transport Association, believes that the current trend of promoting automobile consumption in various places has been relatively obvious, and stabilizing automobile consumption is the consensus, and there should be no new purchase restriction measures in various places at present.

However, the "Opinions" emphasize "adapting to local conditions" when explicitly and gradually abolishing the restriction on the purchase of automobiles.

For example, Lang Xuehong said that Beijing is a city with strict car purchase restrictions, and the purchase of new energy vehicles also needs a long queue to get the indicators, and the industry has repeatedly called on Beijing to relax the purchase restriction policy. However, Beijing's relaxation of the purchase restriction policy will face many practical difficulties, and the industry has also suggested that Beijing implement suburban license plates according to local conditions and refer to Shanghai to release some of Beijing's car purchase demand.

In Cui Dongshu's view, Beijing should increase the purchase index of electric vehicles this year. "Some measures to restrict purchases in Beijing, Shanghai and other cities, at present, there is also some room for relaxation, especially in Beijing and other regions should relax the purchase restrictions or temporarily increase the purchase restriction indicators to stimulate the consumption of new cars, while promoting economic development." The establishment of automobile consumption from purchase management to use management, is the direction of future development, through economic means to regulate, levy congestion charges, etc. to change the way of purchase management, for Beijing and other core cities congestion improvement and improve residents to buy cars has great significance. ”

Completely abolish the second-hand car relocation restriction policy

The "Opinions" also brought good news to the second-hand car market, emphasizing "the comprehensive cancellation of the second-hand car relocation policy and the implementation of inter-provincial measures for the registration of small non-operating second-hand car transactions".

In recent years, with the efforts of many parties, the national second-hand car market has maintained rapid growth, with a transaction volume of 17.5851 million units in 2021, an increase of 22.62% year-on-year.

Since the beginning of this year, the national second-hand car trading volume has declined. According to data from the China Automobile Dealers Association, from January to March 2022, the cumulative transaction volume of used cars nationwide was 3.8796 million units, down 1.93% year-on-year. Among them, the transaction volume of the national second-hand car market in March was 1.3181 million units, down 15.99% year-on-year.

According to the analysis of the China Automobile Dealers Association, due to the impact of the epidemic factor in local areas of China in March, the prosperity of the market has weakened significantly, and many second-hand car operators have suspended business in stages.

For the market expectations in April, the relevant person in charge of the China Automobile Dealers Association said that the impact of the epidemic on the market's passenger flow and transaction volume will continue for a period of time, especially in the first two weeks, the market is still hovering in the downward channel. In the middle and late stages of April, with the partial epidemic easing, the consumer demand suppressed in the previous period will be concentrated, but this is not a signal of market recovery. On the one hand, the direct impact of the repeated epidemics is the decrease in consumer demand for car purchases, on the other hand, the wave of layoffs in the first quarter of the Internet factories and the impact of the epidemic on small and medium-sized enterprises have also restricted the growth of consumer demand to some extent. Therefore, the trading volume in April is expected to decline by more than 10% compared with the same period in 2021, and the market is still in a slump range.

In addition to the impact of the recent epidemic, the local relocation policy has long restricted the further development of the second-hand car market.

The so-called second-hand car relocation policy refers to the restrictive policy of some local governments not to license foreign second-hand cars that do not meet the relevant standards.

"At present, the scale of used car transactions in many developed countries abroad has exceeded the volume of new car transactions, and one of the important reasons is that these countries do not have too many restrictions on the circulation of used cars. However, in many places in China, there are still many inconveniences in the limited relocation policy of second-hand cars in terms of transactions, taxes, insurance, registration, and off-site car inspection. Zhang Xiang said.

Zhang Xiang believes that the "Opinions" emphasize that "the comprehensive cancellation of the second-hand car relocation policy" has released a positive signal for creating a market environment for the free circulation of second-hand cars. Lang Xuehong also said that the new policy has played a very positive role in promoting the development of the second-hand car market, and believes that the national second-hand car should be able to implement inter-provincial communication in the middle of this year.

In fact, in recent years, the mainland has continuously increased its efforts at the policy level to accelerate the resolution of pain points such as high transaction costs, long cycles and inconveniences of second-hand cars, but the lack of some supporting policies still restricts the further development of the second-hand car market.

"Clarifying the attributes of goods is an urgent problem for used cars to solve." Lang Xuehong said.

According to Lang Xuehong, the attributes of commodities have not been clarified, resulting in some favorable policies such as the tax reduction for second-hand cars cannot be fully effectively implemented. Dealers have repeatedly responded that they hope to determine the attributes of used car commodities as soon as possible to reduce the financing cost of used cars and speed up the flow of used cars.

The reporter learned that the China Automobile Dealers Association has recently formally submitted the "Report on the Difficulties of the Current Automobile Market and Circulation Industry and Policy Suggestions" to the relevant government departments, hoping to establish the attributes of second-hand car commodities, better play the role of the government, and promote the efficient circulation and allocation of commodities and factors.

At present, mainland used cars lack commodity attributes. According to the current "Provisions on the Registration of Motor Vehicles", the second-hand car transaction adopts the property rights change registration method, and then superimposes the impact of the license restriction policy in many cities, so that although the professional second-hand car distribution enterprises are willing to develop on a large scale, they are subject to the fact that the second-hand car has no attributes of inventory commodities, and can only be purchased and sold according to fixed assets, and cannot be included in the accounting accounts of the enterprise in the form of commodities.

The China Automobile Dealers Association believes that once the commodity rights of second-hand cars for distribution purposes are confirmed, it will fundamentally change a series of problems such as small and weak business entities in the second-hand car industry, small transaction scale, inconvenient transactions, and opaque information. At the same time, it will completely open up the blockage point of second-hand car circulation, thereby prospering the second-hand car market, releasing more space for the development of the new car market, especially new energy vehicles, and promoting the virtuous cycle and sustainable development of the automobile industry.

It is understood that at present, the number of cars in the country has reached 307 million, of which 99 cities have more than 1 million cars, and the mainland has become the world's largest automobile production, consumption and ownership of the country, and the characteristics of the stock market have been very obvious.

China Automobile Dealers Association preliminary estimates that if the establishment of second-hand car commodity attributes and other policies to land, second-hand car trading volume is expected to grow rapidly and significantly, is expected to achieve the same sales level as the new car market in about 3 years, that is, 25 million vehicles per year, while bringing replacement consumption upgrades, contributing to new car sales of about 4 million, and a large part of which will be the growth space of new energy vehicles, about 1.5 million.