People’s Daily. According to the Beijing Municipal Commission of Development and Reform, the city will not take administrative measures to restrain residents from buying automobiles in order to deal with the growing congestion resulting from the increasing size of the city vehicle parc.
To deal with increasingly serious traffic congestion, Beijing will take steps such as raising parking fees in urban districts and striving to build more rail transit lines to address the issue, so ordinary residents may rationally select the travel option they prefer.
Data shows that the number of registered vehicles in Beijing exceeded 4 million units as of December 18, 2009. There are 66.1 automobiles for every 100 households in Beijing, taking the lead across the country
A separate report from the Ministry of Public Security said that almost 200 million Chinese can drive a vehicle—about 15% of the 1.3 billion population.
- 69% of licensed drivers can drive a car
- About 19 million Chinese obtained a driving license in 2009
- A total 16.7 million vehicles were sold in China last year, bringing the total on-road fleet to more than 186 million. Around 41% of the vehicles were cars and 51% were motorcycles.
The ministry attributed the rapid rise in vehicle numbers to the government’s stimulus policies, which included lower taxes on small-displacement automobiles, subsidies to replace old vehicles and subsidies to farmers buying vehicles.