[sustran] Guangzhou joins the list of cities in China with a quota for new vehicles

[Cornie Huizenga]

Dear All,

After Shanghai and Beijing, Guangzhou has introduced - literally overnight
- a quota system for new cars.  This means that the three largest cities in
the largest vehicle market in the world now have a quota system in place.
It appears more and more that we are witnessing a new model of motorization
one in which the government realizes that unchecked growth in motorization
has more disadvantages than advantages to society.

It might be good to remember that while China has the largest motorcycle
industry in the world that it also has banned the use of internal
combustion motorcycles in over 100 cities. At the same time the ban on
traditional motorcycles made it possible that China now have over 100
million electric motorcycles on the road with 20 million being added each
year.

No details are yet available on whether Guangzhou will follow the Beijing
model with a lottery, or whether it will follow the Shanghai model where a
monthly auction generates close to $ 1 billion per year in revenue for the
city, a large part of which is used to support public transport.

Cornie
Guangzhou adopts car quota to counter gridlock Updated: 2012-07-01 18:19
( Xinhua)
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2012-07/01/content_15540462.htm

GUANGZHOU - Authorities in south China's megacity of Guangzhou announced
late Saturday that they will slash the number of new cars hitting the
streets to ease the city's traffic jams and cut pollution.

The city government announced during a press conference Saturday night that
it will only allow 120,000 passenger vehicles to be registered over a
one-year trial period, during which only 10,000 licenses will be handed out
per each month.

The new quota system went into effect on Sunday. Car dealerships were
packed with customers as residents rushed to buy cars before the quota
began.

The city government said it will release a more detailed car quota plan by
the end of July.

Traffic jams in Guangzhou have worsened recently. Average speeds during
rush hours have slowed to 20 km per hour and are expected to become even
slower. Growing motor vehicle emissions have also worsened the city's air
quality.

Guangzhou is the third Chinese city to cap small passenger vehicle
registrations after Beijing and Guiyang.

In 2010, Beijing started to impose a monthly cap on the issuance of license
plates and introduced a lottery system to distribute the plates.

Guiyang, capital of southwest China's Guizhou province, introduced a
similar lottery system last year.

Guangzhou launches auto curb policy

Global Times | July 02, 2012 01:25
By Wang Xinyuan

http://www.globaltimes.cn/NEWS/tabid/99/ID/718338/Guangzhou-launches-auto-curb-policy.aspx

Guangzhou instituted measures to control the number of new cars on the
roads starting Sunday, a similar move to those in Beijing and Shanghai, in
order to tackle traffic congestion and pollution. It is expected to affect
low-end domestic automakers and dampen auto sales, industry insiders said.

"We were asked to work all night long Saturday," Zeng Guobin, a
Guangzhou-based auto dealer, told the Global Times. Many local residents
rushed to buy cars Saturday night, the last chance they had to register
their cars without restriction.

Guangzhou's city government announced Saturday a quota system for new car
owners. The local authorities will issue 10,000 new license plates monthly
or 120,000 annually, only about 36 percent of the total number of plates
issued in 2011.

It is the fourth city to institute such control measures after Shanghai,
Beijing and Guiyang.

The new rule is aimed at curbing traffic congestion and air pollution
problems, according to the local government. "The city government will
issue detailed measures and procedures before the end of July," the
Guangzhou government said.

More cities are expected to follow suit by launching quotas, which will
give a blow to auto sales in China, Fu Zhiyong, an auto consultant and
partner with Adfaith Management Consulting, told the Global Times.

China surpassed the US to become the world's largest auto market in 2009.
But sales growth slowed significantly to only 2.45 percent in 2011 when
China sold 18.5 million vehicles, the year when Beijing began its controls
on the number of new cars.

With Guangzhou following suit, auto sales in China might see a slight
growth of under 3 percent in 2012, Fu estimated.

There may soon be overcapacity in the auto industry, and the way out for
domestic automakers might be to expand into overseas markets, Li Haiying,
an auto analyst with Anbound Consulting, told the Global Times.

Two auto dealers in Guangzhou said that it's likely Guangzhou will begin
the same monthly lottery for new car registration launched in Beijing last
year.

Beijing launched the monthly lottery for car license plates in January 2011
as an effort to contain increasingly severe traffic congestion caused by
the capital's 4 million cars.

Shanghai introduced a control measure in 1994 of auctioning license plates,
and a car license plate is now worth an average of 60,000 yuan, almost the
price of a domestically made car.

However, since Beijing launched its auto curbing policy in 2011, traffic
congestion has not improved much, Fu said, noting that the best solution is
more reasonable and comprehensive city planning.


-- 
Cornie Huizenga
Joint Convener
Partnership on Sustainable, Low Carbon Transport
Mobile: +86 13901949332
cornie.huizenga at slocatpartnership.org
www.slocat.net