China is allowing pickup trucks to travel in select urban areas for the first time, according to Bloomberg.

In February, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and two other agencies relaxed or lifted the pickup bans in four provinces including Liaoning, Henan, Hebei and Yunnan. The amendments began on May 1 and would take effect in the aforementioned provinces by October 1.

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"The four provinces were selected out of a balance of interests," Zhang Zhiyong, an independent auto analyst in Beijing, said. "Pollution isn't the main concern for the MIIT and local governments when they make policy decisions. What they want is to help the auto industry prosper when the market is relatively gloomy."

Meanwhile, pickup owner like Wei Chenglin from Dalian, where some areas restrict him from using his Ford F-150, was happy to hear about the relaxed policy. "We applauded the good news in our WeChat group of pickup fans. Quite a few of them have reached out to importers to place orders in the past couple of months. Pickups have great potential in China."

Pickup trucks remain an untapped segment of China's auto market. For decades, they were banned from being used in urban cities as China is facing terrible traffic congestion and smog.

In June, the sales of trucks increased by 36 percent from a year earlier. However, according to the China Passenger Car Association, the figure is still small compared with the United States. With only nearly 329,000 pickup units sold in China in 2015, these trucks made up just 1.3 percent of the country's more than 24 million vehicle deliveries.

In April, Ford announced it would be importing its F-150 Raptor to China in 2017, hoping to "inspire a new generation of off-road enthusiasts."

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