BEIJING, April 28 -- The government is moving to slow investments in the auto industry, officials said Thursday, one of several steps being taken to cool growth in sectors whose growth is outstripping demand.

    Those steps follow control measures for other industries such as ferrous alloy, aluminum, coke and cement, He Yanli, deputy director of the National Development and Reform Commission's industry department, told reporters while attending a conference in Beijing.

    Both foreign and domestic auto companies have been pouring billions of dollars in new investments into new vehicle factories. In March, China's Cabinet warned of overcapacity problems and said the government would limit its approvals for new auto companies.

    China's car sales in the first three months of this year rose 74 percent from the same period a year earlier to 890,000 units, the official Xinhua News Agency reported in early April, citing data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.

    The local auto industry began to pick up last year after slowing significantly since mid-2004 when the government took measures to curb bank lending to various sectors that it viewed as being in danger of overheating, including the auto industry.

    Meanwhile, the government said it will shut small coke production facilities by the end of 2009 to help reduce overcapacity in that industry. The move follows the setting of lower output capacity targets for the ferrous alloy, cement and aluminum industries earlier this week.

    Coke producers must close coking units with a height of less than 4.3 meters in eastern China by 2007 and in the west by 2009, the National Development and Reform Commission said in a statement posted on its Web site Thursday.

    (Source: Shenzhen Daily/ Agencies)