BEIJING: Passenger vehicle sales in China to retail customers rose 20 percent in October from a year earlier, the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA) said on Tuesday.

Auto retail sales totalled 2.2 million vehicles in October, CPCA said in a statement on its website. For January-October, passenger car sales rose 15.2 percent versus the same period in 2015, it said.

The China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, whose statistics are generally viewed as the benchmark for the industry, is due to report wholesale data for October on Thursday.

The CPCA predicted 13 percent growth in passenger car sales for 2016, state media reported earlier on Tuesday.

Copyright Reuters, 2016