With the European debt crisis still unresolved, sales for imported vehicles in China have been beginning to slump. Statistics from China Automobile Trading showed that 712,000 vehicles have been imported in the first three quarters of this year, sources reported. The figures show that growth rates in the import market are 27 percent, far less than they were last year.

CATC predicts import sales for the whole of 2011 to be no higher than 820,000, growing only 30 percent from 2010.

In the first and second quarters of this year, the earthquake in Japan and the ensuing auto part shortages were seen as the major cause behind the slump in imports. Meanwhile, imports of luxury and other high-end vehicles, which had been constantly rising, begun to fall back in the third quarter. In August, Audi saw its exports to China (including Hong Kong) increase 27 percent from 2010, noticeably less than it had grown in the past. BMW and Mercedes-Benz also saw a decrease in sales of their imported cars.

In an effort to combat this trend, sales promotions for luxury vehicles have been increasing. The average savings from sales promotions for imported vehicles in September was 17,000 yuan ($2,657.46), but was around 19,000 yuan ($2,970.10) for luxury cars. CATC analysts believe that as supply problems no longer exist in the import market, prices for foreign vehicles should continue to decrease. Due to the uncertainty of various macroeconomic factors, it is hard to predict how imports will fare next year.