The Commerce Ministry says 39,000 vehicles were imported in the first nine months of this year during an ongoing test trial of parallel car imports. That was almost eight times more vehicles than during the same period a year ago.

The ministry also announced that the trial will be extended beyond Shanghai and Tianjin and Fujian and Guangdong provinces to Sichuan Province, the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Dalian and Ningbo.

Parallel import cars are shipped directly to dealers from the automakers and are much cheaper than those that go through franchisers. China hopes the expanded trial will significantly reduce the price of imported cars and related products.