The world’s biggest vehicle market — China — is going to introduce a total ban on the production and sale of fossil fuel cars, Bloomberg reports.
Announcement aimed at tackling pollution will prove a huge incentive to development and sale of electric and hybrid vehicles — the market led by companies including BYD Co. and BAIC Motor Corp.
China’s largest electric-vehicle maker BYD gained 7.2% to HK$50.65 and BAIC surged 2.9% to HK$7.09 in Hong Kong trading soon after the announcement.
The vice minister of industry and information technology Xin Guobin said at a forum in the northern city of Tianjin at the weekend that the government was negotiating with other regulators on a timetable to end production and sales.
“These measures will promote profound changes in the environment and give momentum to China’s auto industry development. Enterprises should strive to improve the level of energy saving for traditional cars, and vigorously develop new energy vehicles according to assessment requirements,” he said in remarks broadcast by CCTV state television.
According to the International Organization of Motor Vehicle Manufacturers, China produced and sold more than 28m vehicles last year only.
The sale of new energy vehicles topped 500,000 in the world’s second-largest economy in 2016, over 50% more than the previous year.