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Bloomberg
Chinese consumers waiting for years to lay their hands on the Porsche sports car or the 7 series from BMW AG may soon be rewarded. Imported premium cars in the $80,000 to $240,000 range are set to benefit the most from China’s planned reduction in tariffs by about half, said James Roy, a director at luxury consultancy Agility Research and Strategy in Shanghai. That also includes models from Daimler AG’s Mercedes-Benz and Toyota Motor Corp.’s Lexus. A car priced at $100,000 could become more than $10,000 cheaper after the planned duty cut.
“This is really going to stimulate buying among that growing group of Chinese who are affluent but not wealthy,†Roy said. “They buy a lot of luxury brands and aspire to a high-level lifestyle, but are still conscious of value and can’t afford absolutely everything.†The move has the potential to stoke car demand among the millions of well-off consumers that China’s economic growth has spawned since the country became a member of the World Trade Organization in 2001. China imported 1.22 million vehicles last year, or about 4.2 percent of the country’s total sales of about 28.9 million automobiles.