SUV segment sparks surge in light vehicle sales

However, the contribution of consumer spending to total GDP growth has for the first time outweighed the contribution of fixed-asset investment, clearly indicating that the government is taking some measures to rebalance the economy. Investment is not picking up as expected.

According to the nation's 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-15), urbanization will become the focus of China's economic growth in the future.

This will lead to increased investment in urban infrastructure and construction, partially offsetting the effect of China's economic slowdown. The economy's overall trend of expansion remains unchanged.

On the other hand, sections of the property market have begun to heat up again recently.

Housing bubbles are emerging and a shadow banking sector is growing rapidly.

These factors have brought on some uncertainties for the Chinese economy.

Taking into account all of these factors, we have decided to raise our short-term sales forecast for 2013 passenger vehicle sales to 16.07 million units, up 12.8 percent.

The forecast for light commercial vehicle market sales declined to 5.3 million units, down 6.2 percent.

We have also slightly raised our long-term forecast for passenger vehicles and reduced our long-term forecast for light commercial vehicles.

The writer is a market analyst at LMC Automotive, who can be contacted at XCui@lmc-auto.com