More Chinese Cities To Limit Car Growth

Bertel Schmitt
by Bertel Schmitt

China’s car restrictions are spreading to the provinces. I always thought Beijing is one of China’s most polluted cities, but no, says the Wall Street Journal, Shijiazhuang is. And it is putting a stop to willy-nilly car buying.

The capital of steel-producing Hebei province surrounding Beijing, “will restrict the number of new vehicles to 100,000 this year and limit households to owning two cars,” the Journal says. If you want a new car, you must win the license plate lottery, just like in Beijing.

Beijingers view this with worry. They used to stash the cars Beijing does not want in the neighboring Hebei province.

After Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Guiyang set limits to new cars, the malady appears to be spreading to the sticks. Last week, Zhejiang province south of Shanghai proposed to allow its cities to limit the number of new vehicles.

Bertel Schmitt
Bertel Schmitt

Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.

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  • 08Suzuki 08Suzuki on Jun 19, 2013

    There's a serious issue with pollution in China as a whole, needless to say. Frankly they need to adopt some of the public transportation initiatives and bike-to-work promotion that is going on in this country (you know, like they used to do until their economy caught fire). And yeah, something about their industrial pollution, especially.

    • Hreardon Hreardon on Jun 19, 2013

      Industrial pollution is likely a bigger contributor than automotive. China really needs to get a grasp on their environmental issues, but at the same time they know that this would be a serious impediment to growth. Does anyone have any statistics or data on the relative competitive advantage for Chinese production and where it is trending? I ask because I have two clients who recently returned production to North America (one factory in Mexico, one in the US) after a ten year stint manufacturing in China. The competitive advantage had shrunk to a point where it wasn't worth the hassle.

  • Zip89123 Zip89123 on Jun 19, 2013

    Free public transit would be a nice start to cleaning up this mess.

  • Philipwitak Philipwitak on Jun 19, 2013

    here is an idea. why not arrange for all the perpetually-disgruntled right-wingers from our country to 'self-relocate' themselves to china, where air quality environmental conditions seem to be so much more to their professed liking?

  • Jimbob457 Jimbob457 on Jun 19, 2013

    If Los Angeles can control air pollution, any city can.

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