By KEITH BRADSHER

GUANGZHOU, China - Do Chinese automakers need a bailout?
The nation’s car industry is quietly pressing for government help as it copes with a jarring slowdown, top Chinese auto executives said in interviews here.
This autumn, after six years of 20 percent or more annual growth, vehicle sales were flat or slightly down, a shock to an industry that has borrowed heavily to build ever more factories for a market that once seemed insatiable.
Citing the $25 billion in loans that the United States Congress has approved to help American automakers increase research into more fuel-efficient vehicles, and the additional $25 billion in loans the American industry seeks to cope with a hobbled economy, Chinese executives are telling the government in Beijing that they also need emergency help. They want lower taxes on new cars, lower fuel prices and increased grants for research into hybrid cars and new technology.
“The Chinese government will undoubtedly support us,” said She Cairong, the general manager of JAC Motors. He added that stateowned Chinese banks had already become more willing to lend money to automakers in recent weeks as bank regulators eased restrictions on loans to heavy industry.
Still, he and other executives said that while government officials had voiced concern about the industry, they had not committed to any specific help.
Michael Dunne, the managing director for China at the marketing consulting company J. D. Power, said by telephone from Shanghai that the executives’ remarks represented a shift in the industry’s position. “This is the first I’ve heard of it,” he said, adding that “as the market slows down, Chinese automakers are going to face competition as they never have before.”
Dealership lots across China became increasingly crowded with unsold cars as sales were slightly lower in August and September than a year earlier. Yet manufacturers unexpectedly increased shipments of new vehicles to dealerships in October by 10 percent compared with a year earlier, seeking to keep factories busy and avoid layoffs. The American industry has found that raising production in the face of weak sales leads to deeper trouble, and there is little reason to think the outcome would be different in China.
The Chinese industry faces several threats at once. Weakening economic growth, falling real-estate prices and a yearlong plunge in the stock market have made consumers leery of spending money. Fuel prices in China are still high despite the decline in world oil prices. And Chinese auto exports, mostly to developing countries in Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America, are starting to crumble.
China’s car industry is already bigger than Japan’s, and its sales are approaching those of the industries in the United States and all of Europe. China is on track to sell 10 million vehicles this year, while demand in the United States is dropping toward 14 million vehicles. Automobiles have played a central role in Beijing’s program to shift from making cheap goods that require low-skilled labor to more advanced products. To that end, the government has provided considerable help to the auto industry with research and development spending, as well as loans from state-owned banks.
Western companies would probably benefit, at least indirectly, from any new government initiative to help China’s auto industry, because Western companies are required to do business through joint ventures with Chinese automakers, most of which are partly or entirely government owned.
Zheng Qinghong, the general manager of Guangzhou Auto, one of the nation’s largest carmakers, said direct government loans, of the sort under discussion in Washington, were not needed in China. “For now,” he said, “the Chinese auto industry doesn’t need saving.”