Car Sales Creates Urgent Need for Public Transportation

August 26, 2002

I spend 40 per cent of my time in traffic jams, up from 20 per cent three years ago according to taxi driver. In the first half of this year, sales of cars in the city were 133,000 - an increase of 19.2 per cent over last year - of which 99,000 were new cars, a record increase of 30 per cent. The city has about 1.5 million vehicles and nearly three million people hold driving licenses.

At the city's three biggest car markets, individuals accounted for nearly 90 per cent of the total - the very people who used to take taxis but now drive their own cars.

For the government, these sales are a matter of pride - a sign of rising incomes and the birth of a mass market, like that in the United States, Japan and Europe, which is a precondition for a big car industry. It is also good news for the city's treasury, because taxes still account for a substantial part of the retail price.

The city government wants to turn Beijing into one of the country's biggest car producers. Although a factory produced the city's first passenger car in June 1958, it has long trailed Shanghai, Changchun and Wuhan and in 1998 produced 84,800 vehicles, just 5.2 per cent of the national total.

Official estimates say the Chinese car market will exceed four million units by 2005, up from 2.3 million last year, and by 2015 will be the third-largest in the world, after the US and Japan.

Study Suggest Ways to Ease Car Pollution

May 17, 2002

China could significantly reduce damaging emissions from its increasing number of cars by adopting new transport strategies such as increasing the cost of cars, using electric and natural-gas vehicles and promoting intelligent transport management to cut congestion according to a new report which took Shanghai as an in-depth model for the country.
The report took the Shanghai municipality as its case study.

There are currently over 700,000 cars in Shanghai, accounting for only about 6.4 per cent of the city's greenhouse gas emissions. However, the number of cars is rising at an alarming rate: over the past 10 years, ownership has been increasing by an average of 10 per cent. The report estimated that by 2020, the city's vehicle greenhouse gas emissions could increase sevenfold were it to continue its current vehicle ownership and use patterns.

According to the report if Shanghai were to incorporate transport measures such as encouraging smaller and cleaner cars and better mass transit facilities, the city's transport greenhouse gas emissions would only increase by 3.7 times by 2020.

Pollution level in Hong Kong double London’s

May 15, 2002

Des Voeux Road users are exposed to about twice as much of a form of fine pollutant associated with health problems as those in London's busy Marylebone Road. Some areas of the UK meet United States safety standards on PM2.5, but in Hong Kong even rural Tap Mun recorded double the US limit. Fine particles come from sources including industrial combustion and vehicle exhausts, while coarse particles include material such as dust from construction sites.

Some experts think this may be because of Hong Kong's taller buildings the air can not disperse.
In 1997, the US set limits on PM2.5 but both London and Hong Kong continue to concentrate air-quality objectives on a different pollution measure called PM10, which is the combined total of coarse and fine particle Hong Kong plans to review its position on fine particle pollution next year, as does the European Community.

Hong Kong’s Air Pollution Causes 17,000 Yearly Hospital Admissions

May 4, 2002

More than 17,000 Hong Kong people are admitted to hospital each year and spend nearly 76,000 days off work or school because of air pollution-related heart and lung ailments, according to a recent study. Updated figures now estimate that about 4,300 people die prematurely each year from inhaling polluted air in the territory and that 7,724 people were admitted to public hospitals for cardiovascular diseases, including heart attacks and strokes, in 2000. Another 9,831 people were in hospital for respiratory or lung problems.

The team called for "urgent and radical air-quality interventions" in Hong Kong, including a moratorium on more roads, expanding pedestrianisation and encouraging the use of electric, hybrid or hydrogen cell-powered cars. The study team charted the number of patient admissions due to average levels of four pollutants in Hong Kong - nitrous dioxide, sulphur dioxide, ozone and fine particulates.

The heart disease patients spent a total of 35,660 days in hospital, and the lung patients 40,171 days. Given that the Hospital Authority spends about $3,000 a day to operate a bed, this works out to $227.5 million a year treating pollution-related illnesses.
In 2000, the team estimated there were 4,261 avoidable deaths due to air pollution.

Hong Kong and Guangdong to Clear Smog

April 30, 2002

Hong Kong and Guangdong will work together to clear smog from the Pearl River Delta within eight years under an ambitious plan unveiled yesterday that aims to reduce dangerous emissions by up to 55 per cent.

The $20 million Pearl River Delta study, which has been two years in the making, concluded that pollution was caused mainly by power plants, vehicle emissions and factories. The key pollutants from these sources are nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulphur dioxide (SO2), respirable suspended particles (RSP) and volatile organic compounds (VOC). A target has been set for both sides to reduce emissions from 1997 levels by 2010, cutting NOx by 20 per cent, SO2 by 39 per cent, VOC by 54 per cent and RSP by 55 per cent.
Environmentalists welcomed the report but questioned whether the mainland had the political will to meet the objectives.

The report recommends cleaner fuel for power plants, tighter controls on vehicle and industrial emissions, and control of organic air pollutants on both sides. A regional air-quality management plan will be drawn up for both sides to follow and a taskforce will be formed to determine priorities and monitor the scheme. It claims measures such as introducing electric vehicles and electronic road pricing might not be appropriate at the moment.

The report found that 80 to 95 per cent of the pollutants were generated in Guangdong and air quality had deteriorated sharply with visibility in Shenzhen nine times worse in the late-1990s than in 1991. Air quality had become five times worse in Guangzhou over this period and three times worse in Hong Kong.

China Automobile Equipment Markets

The automobile output of China was 2 million in 2000 and the update stock of automobile in
China is more than 16 million. With the entrance into WTO, China has to decrease its tariff
rates. This will further to encourage the import of automobiles. As the total number of autos is becoming more and more great, the industry of post-sale service, maintenance and gas stationequipment grow very fast . In this industry of China, the number of firms is increasing at the rate of 10-15% per year. The demand for all kinds of products and technology will romote theappearance of a huge market.

In China, the industry of post-sale service, repairing and maintenance is changing its ways oftrade and service in order to keep up with the international standard. The new way of 4"S"chain store has substitutes the old way. Many repairing equipment and products entered intoChina market with the import of automobiles and technology, and their market share has beenover 52%. Undoubtedly, this is a market without national boundary and governmentrestrictions.

Now, in China, there are nearly 500,000 automobile service companies, 310,000 repairing
companies and 4,000 testing stations. About 2.4 million employees make their living in this
industry, repairing 9.8 million motors per year and creating product value of nearly US$ 5 billion.

There are more than 800 domestic enterprises that produce automobile maintenance productsin China. These companies' gross product value is about US$ 0.5 billion per year. However, themarket demand, which is 700,000 sets of new assorted equipment every year, can not besatisfied by these present domestic companies. Therefore, China have to import a greatnumber of equipment and product, especially the high-tech product, electronic testing andrepairing equipment, to meet the consumers' demand.