China Car Industry News in Brief!

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Round up of the days happenings in the crazy world of Chinese cars:

Great wall gaining loads of cold hard cash:

GREAT Wall Motor Co Ltd has raised HK$1.6 billion (US$204.5 million) after selling 151 million shares at HK$10.65 on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange market on Friday, according to the company’s statement yesterday.

China’s biggest maker of sport utility vehicles has raised HK$3.3 billion through additional share sales since its initial public offering in 2003, boosting the total shareholding capital to HK$1.095 billion with a market value of HK$12.9 billion.

China and American motoring giant, General Motors, gets into bed with the Chinese government (again)

GENERAL Motors Corp yesterday formalized ties with China’s Ministry of Education to strengthen links with Chinese universities in the research and development of automotive technologies.

The cooperation includes sharing technology, expertise and establishing joint research and development entities by GM and Chinese universities.

China to cut tax on second hand car sales! Great idea! We’ve seen loads of cars that we’d love to get our hands on – like a late 80′s Toyota Crown (thats a 3.0L 24 valve monster) and a Suzuki jeep!

CHINA is considering cutting value-added tax on second-hand car auction companies to boost the used-vehicle market, according to government officials.

The VAT for used-car auction firms may even be abolished, people familiar with the matter told Shanghai Daily yesterday. The existing rate is four percent.

“The lowered tax will enable second-hand car auction companies to be more competitive with dealers,” the source said. Car maker’s dealers, which offer trade-ins on old models with incentives to boost new car sales, pay two percent VAT while the public trading market, where most second-hand cars are sold, charges no VAT.

The tax reduction is part of a new policy to boost trading of second-hand vehicles as the world’s second-largest auto market grows.

More than 1.9 million used cars were traded in China last year, up 31.5 percent from 2005, said the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. The growth rate was 6.37 percentage points higher than that of new car sales and was also the third consecutive year that used-car sales outpaced those of new cars.