CHINA PLANS TO BAN PETROL AND DIESEL CARS

China is the world's biggest car market, and it is planning to ban the production and sale of petrol and diesel cars and vans.

China's vice minister of industry has said it had started "relevant research", but had not yet decided when the ban would be implemented.

"Those measures will certainly bring profound changes for our car industry's development," said Xin Guobin to Xinhua, China's official news agency.

Both France and the UK have already announced plans to ban new diesel and petrol cars by 2040 as an effort to reduce pollution and carbon emissions. Now, Chinese-owned carmaker Volvo says that all its new car models will contain an electric motor from 2019.

Volvo's Chinese owner, Geely, aims to sell on million electric vehicles by 2025.

Other global firms working to develop electric cars in China include Renault-Nissan, Ford and General Motors. Automakers are jostling for a slice of the growing Chinese market before the introduction of new rules made to fight pollution.

China is aiming for electric battery cars and plug-in hybrids to account for at least one-fifth of its car sales by 2025.

These proposals will require 8% of automakers' sales to be battery electric or plug-in hybrids by 2018 – rising to 12% by 2020.

Xin has predicted that the change will create "turbulent times" in the industry. In addition. the shift will also have a knock-on effect on oil demand in China. The country is currently the world's second-largest oil consumer after the US.