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Japan's domestic sales of cars, trucks and buses in October rose 18% from a year earlier to 500,004 units, a record for the month, the Japan Automobile Dealers' Association said. 

The strong growth followed year-to-year increases of 21% in August and 12% in September.
The monthly sales have been setting records every month since March. 

October sales, compared with the previous month, inched down 0.4%. 

Sales of passenger cars grew 22% from a year earlier to 361,376 units.
Sales of medium-sized cars, which benefited from price reductions arising from introduction of the consumption tax, more than doubled to 30,841 units from 13,056 in October 1988. 

