China's auto sales expected to surpass 17 mln units this year

China's domestic auto sales could hit 17 million units this year, equal the highest annual level ever reached in the United States, the Xinhua News Agency reported Monday, citing a report from the China Association for Auto Manufacturers.

Sales of 17 million units would represent a 25 percent increase over 2009 and average daily sales of 40,000 units nationwide in what remains of this year.

The sales reached nearly 12 million in the first eight months of this year, an increase of more than 39 percent year-on-year.

China overtook the United States to become the world's largest automaker and automobile market in 2009, with sales of 13.64 million units, a 46.15 percent increase year-on-year.

The number of motor vehicles on China's roads is now 199 million, including more than 85 million automobiles, according to a statement released Thursday by the Ministry of Public Security.

A total of 144 million Chinese have a driving license, with the number of drivers increasing annually by more than 22 million, the statement said.

However, some analysts say Monday that the sale of 17 million cars in China is still far less than that in some developed countries.

On average, there are 120 cars per 1,000 people in some developed countries, whereas in China there are 54 cars per 1,000 people, according to a report carried by news portal netease.com.

The boom of the sector has been a cause of celebration in the nation's automobile industry, but it has also led to concerns over congestion and pollution and presented a tough test to policy-makers in city planning and construction nationwide.

Take Beijing, for instance. Beijing's traffic woes will become unbearable by 2015 as 7 million cars will hit the capital's already-jammed roads, and the average rush-hour driving speed is expected to be reduced to 15 kilometers per hour, or running speed, Guo Jifu, director of the Beijing Municipal Transport Commission, told reporters recently.

Sheng Guangyao, a senior researcher from the Institute for Urban and Environmental Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times that congestion is not only about cars and roads, but the result of highly concentrated infrastructure and the long distance between residences and downtown.

"The Americans have been aware of this since the 1970s. But we can't fully copy their experience because we have a really large population," Sheng said.

Sheng also pointed out the obstacles that the sharp increase of cars presents to urban planning.

"Our traffic control is way behind the speed of the increase in the number of cars," he said.

"We used to ignore transportation routes in urban planning, but now we not only pay more attention to traffic but also to the improvement of the outlying areas."

"The government needs to establish education, entertainment and medical care facilities in new residential areas to decrease pressure on traffic, as the current distribution is not balanced," Niu Fengrui, director of the Institute for Urban and Environmental Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences said.

He said that another reason for congestion is that the public transportation supply cannot meet the demand.

"The quality of public transportation currently only supports 20 percent of the city's population but should shoulder 40 to 60 percent of it," he added.

The increasing number of cars is the major contributor to air and noise pollution as well as the rise in respiratory diseases.

With an improvement both in the economy and income, the second- and third-tier mar-kets are expected to become the most important fresh destination for auto consumption within a longer time in the future, Li Yuansheng, an expert in researching the second- and third-tier markets, was quoted as saying earlier.