China’s auto industry is struggling to sell new cars but French automaker Renault is confident about the market’s long-term prospects, according to a senior executive.
The market downtrend started in the middle of last year and Renault expects a full-year decline of about 5% in sales, according to Francois Provost, senior vice president, chairman of China region at the company.
“We remain confident about the long-term trend for the Chinese market,” he told CNBC’s Geoff Cutmore and Arjun Kharpal at the World Economic Forum in Dalian, China.
Provost explained it was hard to determine the key reason for the sales decline but conversations with Renault dealers and salesmen indicated that customers were hesitating to buy new cars.
“I cannot explain in details the root cause but, for sure, our customers are hesitating to buy, and this explains most of the volume decrease,” he said, adding that it is likely that much of the uncertainty comes from the ongoing trade tensions between the…
