Lower Oil Products Prices Affect Automobile Industry      

According to Rao Da, the Secretary-General of the National Passenger Car Liaison Conference, SUV (sport utility vehicle) consumes more fuel than other passenger cars. Both the fuel consumption and the price of SUV are more than 10% higher than conventional sedans. But the sales amount of domestic SUV and the import amount of foreign SUV both saw a growth of over 50% in 2007. In the first five months of 2008 the sales amount of domestic SUV still maintained an astonishing growth of 40%, much higher than the average sales growth of passenger cars.
   The drastic sales growth of SUV is driven by the lower oil products prices in the domestic market.
   According to experts, the lower oil products prices are in fact a behavior of "robbing the poor to help the rich". The lower oil products prices are maintained by financial subsidies from the government. Beneficiaries of the lower products oil prices are the relatively few rich people who have cars. The financial income of the government should put the interests of the public in the first place. A high oil products prices should therefore be borne by the social strata that are relatively rich.
   Experts think that the present status of the lower oil products prices should be changed as soon as possible. The sales growth of cars with large displacement volume can only bring a temporary happy feeling to car producers and consumers. The resultant high fuel consumption constitutes a permanent burden of energy and environmental protection on the entire society. Besides, the lower oil products prices stimulate the constant production expansion of passenger car enterprises and especially SUV producers. In such a case, the later the oil products prices rise and the bigger the price rise margin are, the greater the impact on market and production enterprises will be.
   Faced with the increasing pressure of energy issues and environmental protection, the automobile industry of China has set the target for 2010. Efforts will be made to control the fuel consumption growth within 50% when the total amount of cars is doubled. The fuel consumption per new car per 100 kilometers in 2010 should be 15% lower than 2005. China's automobile industry should upgrade new standards for fuel economics and emission of cars and vigorously develop new cars with energy-saving and environmental friendly.