China auto industry association cuts 2014 sales forecast - Bloomberg

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Growth in China's auto sales will likely slow to 4.6 percent this year, lower than the previous forecast of 8.3 percent, Bloomberg News quoted the head of the country's auto association as saying. Dong Yang, secretary general of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM), noted a slowdown in sales over the past two months and said the industry body was looking into the reason for the weakness, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday. "It looks like China's auto sales this year won't hit 24 million units mark," Dong told Bloomberg in an interview. "It should be no problem for it to reach 23 million units instead." CAAM had previously forecast that the world's biggest auto market would expand 8.3 percent to the sale of 23.86 million cars this year, after growing 13.9 percent in 2013. Auto sales rose 2.5 percent in September compared with the same month a year earlier, its slowest pace in 19 months, dragged down by sluggish sales of commercial vehicles such as trucks, CAAM said last week. Sales rose 4 percent in August. Officials at CAAM could not be reached for comment. (Reporting by Shanghai newsroom; Editing by Kazunori Takada)