China's automobile industry has seen negative growth for the first time after 28 years of consistent growth, but will be in a good state of development in the long run as it enters the transition phase of the market and industrial structure, said Xin Guobin, Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), on Monday. 

China's automobile production and sales have declined for 13 consecutive months, from July 2018, resulting from downward economic pressure. Production and sales fell more than 10 percent in the first 7 months of 2019 on a yearly basis, making the auto industry the only major manufacturing sector that witnessed a decline in China, Xin revealed at the Global Automobile Industry Innovation Conference on Monday, according to new release on the MIIT website.

New energy vehicles (NEV) were a main driver of growth in the auto industry, but also saw a decline in growth due to a reduction in subsidies offered to buyers from 2017, according to data from autohome.com, an internet platform that provides auto industry data. 

The Chinese auto market will continue to see negative growth but the drop will narrow to 3.2 percent year-on-year, the platform predicts.

With efficient infrastructure and huge consumer market, the development prospects of the automobile industry are still very broad despite fluctuations at present, said Xin. 

Although China's car market has entered a stage of low growth, there is still huge room for future growth thanks to market potential and inertia of demand, said the China Association of Automobile Manufactures at the conference.

China's auto market is expected to rebound in 2020, with sales expected to reach 22.48 million vehicles, up 6.9 percent from 2019, said autohome.com. 

China now has the largest automobile market in the world, with 250 million cars as of June, according to the latest data released by the Ministry of Public Security. China's automobile industry has ranked first in the world in terms of production and sales for ten consecutive years, with the highest output of 29.01 million vehicles in 2017, 17.25 million higher than any other country. 

"The next 3 to 5 years will be a key stage for the automobile industry to overcome difficulties and shift from high-speed growth to high-quality development," said Xin. "Production and marketing quantity will no longer be the only focus of development, but the improvement of quality."

The official stressed that the whole industry should reform to turn the crisis into an opportunity, and innovation will be the driving force. 

"China will accelerate the publication of a plan for NEV industry development in 2021 to 2035 in order to guide future development," said Xin, adding that the mechanism for coordinating the development of traditional, internal combustion engine vehicles with new energy vehicles will be improved.

China will adopt more open and inclusive regulatory means to give enterprises greater space to develop while ensuring industrial safety, energy conservation and environmental protection, said the Deputy Minister.