Chinese city offers 10-mln-yuan vouchers to spur NEV consumption

The eastern Chinese city of Jinan announced Tuesday it would offer vouchers worth 10 million yuan (about 1.6 million U.S. dollars) to boost the city's consumption on new-energy vehicles (NEV).

The vouchers, to be issued on Nov. 26, are expected to drive 500 million yuan of automobile consumption, Zhao Chen, an official with the municipal bureau of commerce told a press briefing.

Consumers can choose the 1,000-yuan vouchers on vehicles costing less than 100,000 yuan and 5,000-yuan coupons for cars above 200,000 yuan, Zhao said.

China's NEV market has maintained strong growth, with NEV sales surging 134.9 percent year on year in October to about 383,000 units. NEV ownership in the country reached 5.8 million units by late May of 2021, accounting for about half of the global total, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.