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MORE AND MORE CARS
/ASIA AND PACIFIC
source: www.rrojasdatabank.org/
tp_txt2.htm
hypertextbook.com/facts/
2001/MarinaStasenko.shtml
www.transport2000.org.uk/
factsandfigures/Facts.asp
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If an alien were to land on earth, the first thing he would notice about the ‘green planet’ is the amount of cars there are on the streets… - at the start of the last century America had only 8,000 cars and 144 miles of paved roads. The United States was the only country starting an industrial production of vehicles. In 1900 there was 1 car for every 10,000 people in the US and by 1996 the figure was 778 cars for every 1,000 people. In the same year, in the rest of the world there were 84 cars per 1,000 people – a level the United States passed way back in 1920; (1)
- but if car ownership in the rest of the world grew much more slowly than in the US – it took the rest of the world 66 years (1930- 1996) to increase from 5 to 84 vehicles per 1,000 people, an increase the US accomplished between 1910 and 1919 (in only 9 years!) - the vehicle population was still growing faster than the human one. Between 1950 and 1996 the non-US vehicle population grew almost 4 times faster than the human population, at an average 6.9% per year compared with 1.8% per year for people; (1)
- in 1970, there were 200 million cars in the world. In 1990, there were almost 500 million, and in 2000 there were more than 700 million. If present trends continue, the number of cars on Earth will double in the next 30 years;
- most of the world's vehicles are now concentrated in the wealthier regions of the world. In 1993, for example, member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) had 70% of the world's automobiles. In the developing world, in the same year, car ownership rates were far lower: every 1,000 residents there were about 68 cars in Latin America and the Caribbean, 29 cars in East Asia and the Pacific, 14 cars in Africa.
Yet, it is in the developing countries and the transition economies that the greatest increases in the number of motor vehicles are expected…- most of the growth in motor vehicle fleets in the developing world will be concentrated in urban areas. Primary cities draw the largest concentration of vehicles; in Iran, the Republic of Korea, Kenya, Mexico, and Thailand, about 50% of the country's automobiles are in the capital city;
- there were about 4.9 million cars and 6.9 million commercial vehicles in use in India in 2001, with an estimated vehicle ownership rate of 195 persons per car. According to a recent article in The Observer, India makes 3 times the number of cars it did eight years ago. Delhi has 4 million cars and 200,000 new vehicles are added each year. Car ownership in Beijing has doubled over the last five years; (2)
- government statistics show that China produced a record 4 million autos in 2003, when the number of private cars grew by 80% thanks to the country's strong economic advance and growing middle class. The Chinese passenger car market grew tenfold between 1990 and 2000. Actual car ownership for 2000, 2001 and 2002 were 16 million, 18 million and 20.5 million. As long as the economy goes on galloping at its current high-single-digit clip, many expect car sales to increase by 10-20% annually for several years to come; (3)
- personal travel in China has soared in the past two decades, with passenger miles travelled increasing fivefold. The number of private cars in China - about 25 million in 2004 - is still only half the number of cars in America in the ‘30s. But Beijing, a city of 12m people (counting only registered residents) has 2 million cars, some 80% of them in private hands. 250,000 of these were bought in the past two years; (3)
- rapid increases in the number of passenger cars also have been evident in Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia. In 2003, Thailand produced more than 750,000 vehicles, thereby maintaining its position as the 5th-largest vehicle producer in Asia - behind Japan, South Korea, China and India. Nearly 60% of domestic sales comprise light commercial vehicles (LCVs). In 2003, 179,000 passenger cars were sold, up by 42% year on year;(4)
- Malaysia is the biggest car market in ASEAN, accounting for around 1/3 of sales in the region by volume. The impact of greater confidence in the economy, low interest rates, tax cuts, and high salary increases for civil servants was clear in 2002, when overall new-vehicle sales rose by 9.7% to 434,954 units, compared with 396,381 units in 2001, according to the Malaysian Automotive Association (MAA). After Malaysia, Singapore has the highest car-ownership level among the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN);(5)
- in South Korea, there were about 9 million cars and 4 million commercial vehicles in use in 2001, with an estimated vehicle ownership rate of 5.3 persons per car, according to the IEO 2004. The passenger car ownership increased 27.7 times since 1980, from 249.102 to 6,893,633 in 1996. This figure reflects an increase of an average 23.1% per year;(6)
- in Vietnam, according to statistics by traffic police, by the end of 2001, the number of registered cars in Vietnam was 535,000. A report from Toyota Vietnam released in 2003 shows that the private sector, including individuals and enterprises, accounted for up to 56% of its clientele in 2002, up from 50% in 2001. According to local press sources, a similar trend has taken place at other carmakers in Vietnam. With a forecast growth of 12%/year during the 2001-2010 period, the number of registered automobiles in Vietnam will be 1,1 million by 2010. (7)
Number of cars per 1000 people: Asia & Pacific (selected countries) | country | 1980 | 1994 | 1996 | 1998 | 2000 | 2004 | source | | | Japan | 206.6 | 341.5 | 372.7 | 395.0 | 413.0 | 640* | 1, 4 (2002) | | | New Zealand | 420.0 | 445.5 | 474.4 | --- | 578.0 | 613* | 1, 4 (02) | | | Australia | 401.5 | 460.6 | 492.7 | -- | -- | 610 | 1, 5 (04) | | | Brunei | 296.0 | 296.0 | 152.3 | -- | -- | 576 | 1, 6 (04) | | | Malaysia | 51.9 | 116.9 | 139.4 | -- | -- | 232 | 1, 3 (04) | | | Korea, Rep | 6.5 | 115.8 | 151.4 | 163.0 | 171.0 | | 1 | | | Singapore | -- | 94.7 | 99.6 | -- | -- | 111** | 1, 7 (03) | | | Hong Kong | 40.6 | 56.1 | 54.3 | 56.0 | -- | | 1 | | | Mauritius | 26.5 | 55.9 | 61.7 | 71.0 | 78.0 | | 1 | | | Thailand | | 21.7 | 28.2 | -- | -- | | 1 | | | Sri Lanka | | 12.3 | 14.1 | 11.0 | | | 1 | | | Indonesia | | 10.0 | 12.3 | -- | -- | | 1 | | | Cambodia | | 3.3 | 11.3 | -- | -- | | 1 | | | Philippines | | 8.6 | 10.1 | 10.0 | 10.0 | | 1 | | | China | | 2.6 | .0 | 5.0 | 7.0 | 15 | 1, 2 (04) | | | India | | 3.9 | 4.4 | 5.2 | 6.1 | | 1 | | | Pakistan | | 4.4 | 4.6 | 5.0 | -- | 9 | 1, 3 (04) | | | Afghanistan | | 1.5 | .3 | -- | -- | | 1 | | | Bangladesh | | 0.4 | 0.9 | -- | -- | | 1 | |
* Data 2002; **data 2003.
Sources: (1) World Bank, World Development Indicators; (2) www.uitp.com; (3) The Economist Intelligence Unit; (4) Transport Statistics of Great Britain, 2002; (5) Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation, 2003; (6) Scotland's Daily Record; (7) Department of Statistics, Singapore.
(1) OECD Observer, “Driving force”, June 2003. [ www.oecdobserver.org/news/fullstory.php/aid/859/Driving_force.html]
(2) Robin McKie, “How high-pressure politics threatens action on climate”, The Observer, 19 June, 2005.
(3) “Dream machines”, Beijing and Shanghai, from The Economist print edition, June 2nd 2005. [ www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=4032842]
(4) In Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia, however, two and three wheelers make up more than 50% of all motor vehicles, according to the World Resource Institute and the World Bank. - Thailand is the second-largest market for LCVs in the world after the US. Source: The Economist Intelligence Unit, 01 Jan 2005. [ eb.eiu.com/index.asp?layout=oneclick&country_id=1830000183]
(5) The Economist Intelligence Unit, 14 Feb 2005. [ eb.eiu.com/index.asp?layout=oneclick&country_id=1600000160]
(6) International Energy Outlook 2004 [ www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/oil.html ]; United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and Pacific (UNESCAP), “Promotion of Intra-regional Trade and Economic Cooperation in the Automotive Sector” (ST/ESCAP/2212), 2002. [ www.unescap.org/tid/publication/indpub2212.htm]
(7) “What Will Become of the Car Industry?”, Saigon Times Weekly, May 26, 2003. [ www.vvg-vietnam.com/autoblues.htm]
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