The New Energy Vehicle (NEV) industry in China is expected to usher in more development opportunities as the authorities have successively rolled out policies to promote electrification of vehicles in the public sector.

This is according to the Xinhua-run Shanghai Securities News reported Thursday.

The authorities led by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China’s top economic planner had on Tuesday unveiled a circular to build a sound mechanism for promoting new products such as NEVs.

This is to encourage the use of new energy and clean energy vehicles in the areas of public transportation, environmental sanitation, leasing, commuting, urban postal delivery, and urban logistics.

On the same day, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) revealed that it would develop an action plan to promote the electrification of vehicles in the public sector.

The ministry said it would also actively promote use of the electric vehicles in areas such as public transport, sanitation, postal services, leasing, and commuting.

It said due to the effect of the COVID-19 epidemic, automobile production and sales, including the NEVs have fallen sharply.

Mr Geng Wei, a senior researcher at the National Engineering Laboratory for Logistics Information Technology said that it was expected that this part of the loss would be difficult to make up for by retaliatory consumption later.

“At this time, the promotion of electric vehicles in the public sector through policy guidance will play a positive role in the development of the NEV industry,’’ Geng said.

Yang Dong, the General Manager of Transfar Huilian, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Transfar Zhilian Co.,Ltd. Said, with the promotion of policies and market forces, the promotion and application of new energy logistics vehicles is expected to reach a new level.

Though some experts pointed out that in the public sector, the NEVs were widely used in the public transportation and sanitation areas, but these vehicles had basically not reached their life cycles.

They said that therefore, the NEVs would be mainly promoted in the market-oriented commuting, logistics and express delivery areas in the future.

It is reported that Cainiao, Alibaba’s logistics subsidiary, JD.com, Suning.com, SF Express and other well-known companies replaced their logistics vehicles with the pure electric ones on a large scale around 2018.

At the same time, they have promoted the combination of big data, cloud computing and other logistics technologies with the vehicles to create smart new energy logistics vehicles.

According to the Northeast Securities, promoting the use of the electric and new energy vehicles in such areas as urban public transport and urban logistics and distribution will benefit the development of the country’s NEV industry in the long term.