BEIJING -- China's auto sales in January rose 0.9 percent year-on-year to 2.53 million units, data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) showed Friday.

Monthly, the sales declined by 9.2 percent, showed the data.

Last month's auto production rose 1.4 percent year-on-year to 2.42 million units.

Sales of passenger vehicles in January went up 6.7 percent year-on-year to 2.19 million units.

January's auto production and sales remained stable as China's economy continued its recovery momentum. Passenger vehicles posted better-than-expected performance thanks to slight mitigation of automobile chip supply and preferential policies.

Sales of new energy vehicles (NEVs) kept improving in January, surging 140 percent from the same period last year to about 431,000 units, the CAAM data showed.

China aims to raise the proportion of NEVs in its sales of new vehicles to 20 percent by 2025, according to a development plan for China's NEV industry released in 2020.

Last year, China's auto sales rose 3.8 percent year-on-year to 26.28 million units, ending a downward trend that began in 2018.