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China's new energy vehicles (NEVs) have made rapid progress in the past decade, and the market size has grown to a new high. What are the motivating factors behind this development? How about the construction of NEV charging infrastructure? Where are the bottlenecks that need to be broken down to achieve high-quality development of NEVs in the future, and what is the plan of the MIIT for this? Thanks.

Xin Guobin:

Thanks for your question. NEVs have developed rapidly over the past 10 years. General Secretary Xi Jinping noted that developing NEVs is a sure path to turning China from a large automotive manufacturing country to a country with great strength in the automobile industry. Since the 18th CPC National Congress, China has further promoted the national strategy for developing NEVs and strengthened top-level design and innovation. Its automobile industry has grown from small to large, from weak to strong, becoming an important force for the transformation and upgrading of the global automobile industry.

In terms of production and sales volume, the cumulative sales of NEVs have soared from 20,000 at the end of 2012 to 11.08 million at the end of May this year. Since 2015, China's production and sales of NEVs have ranked first globally for seven consecutive years.

On the technical front, Chinese enterprises in the automobile industry have mastered the underlying control technology based on forwarding engineering, increasing the energy density of NEV power batteries by 1.3 times compared with 2012, and axing their prices by 80%.

Regarding corporate brands, six of the top 10 best-selling electric vehicles in the world in 2021 were produced by China's automakers. Chinese companies occupy six seats among the top 10 companies in terms of power battery shipments.

To create an industry-supporting environment, we have built the world's most significant charging and battery-swapping network for NEVs, with 2,617,000 charging piles and 1,298 battery-swapping stations across the country by the end of last year.

Looking back to the past decade, we deeply understand that the rapid development of the NEV industry is attributable to the strong leadership of the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core. We have given full play to the advantages of socialism with Chinese characteristics and stimulated enthusiasm across the society to solve significant problems that restrained industrial development. We have created a unified, open, competitive and orderly market environment. To sum up, we have mainly done the following work to promote the sector's development.

First, we made strategies to lead the coordinated development of the sector. Since 2012, we have worked out two medium- and long-term development plans to navigate the sector's growth based on the facts that it was in initial and early development periods. The first plan spanned from 2012 to 2020, and the second spans from 2021 to 2035. The State Council has founded an inter-departmental joint meeting mechanism led by the MIIT and participated by 20 departments to promote the development of the NEV industry.

Second, we have been improving our policies to nurture the NEV market. The central and local governments have launched over 600 policies covering technology innovation, promotion, application and security oversight to support the NEV industry. For example, consumers can enjoy NEV purchase subsidies, be exempt from particular driving and purchasing restrictions, and use special license plates. These measures have promoted the rapid formation of the NEV market.

Third, we made enterprises into key players in the market and made innovations and breakthroughs in the sector. We implemented an NEV technology innovation campaign and built national manufacturing innovation centers for power batteries and intelligent connected vehicles. The innovation center for power batteries is China's first national manufacturing innovation center. We have also supported enterprises in the upper and lower industry chain to increase R&D spending and create new business models to drive the internal momentum of the sector.

Fourth, we have stuck to open cooperation and facilitated regulated development. We have been promoting the opening up of auto industry in a well-planned way and have built multilateral and bilateral exchange and cooperation platforms such as those with Europe, Japan, and Britain. Several foreign-funded or joint venture NEV businesses have begun operating or manufacturing in China. We also established and improved a management system of the investment approval and production access for NEVs in the country to guide and regulate the sector's orderly development.

We clearly understand that China's NEV industry still has its weakness in some key technologies and supporting capabilities. In the next step, we will study and solve these problems as soon as possible. For example, we are now trying to make decisions through further consultations with related departments on whether the tax exemption for NEV purchasing, which is due to expire by the end of this year, should be extended. Moreover, we will improve the existing dual-credit policy, strengthen R&D and breakthroughs in new batteries and the car's operating system, and launch pilot programs in some cities to electrify all public transportation. We will constantly improve the system of standards and strengthen security oversight. Safety is the prerequisite for the sector's long-term and sustainable development.

That's all. Thank you!

Shou Xiaoli:

Thanks to the three speakers and friends from the media. Today's briefing is now concluded.

Translated and edited by Xu Xiaoxuan, Wang Qian, Zhu Bochen, Li Huiru, Ma Yujia, Zhang Tingting, Wang Wei, Cui Can, Zhou Jing, Xu Kailin, Huang Shan, Zhang Rui, Liu Qiang, Duan Yaying, Yang Xi, Wang Yiming, He Shan, Guo Yiming, Li Xiao, David Ball, Jay Birbeck and Tom Arnstein. In case of any discrepancy between the English and Chinese texts, the Chinese version is deemed to prevail.