Almost 2 Million Cars Made in China in 2003

SHANGHAI January 14, 2004; Dow Jones reported that- China's sales of locally made passenger cars continued to grow at a blistering pace in 2003, rising 75.3% on year to a record 1.97 million units, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers said Thursday.

The steep rise came on the heels of a more than 50% growth rate in 2002, which some car makers early last year said would be hard to surpass.

Sales of all types of locally made vehicles jumped 34.2% on year in 2003 to 4.39 million, an association official said.

Truck sales rose 10.4% to 1.21 million units, and bus sales grew 15.2% to 1.21 million units, he added.

Sales of passenger cars increased dramatically in December, more than doubling to a monthly record of 227,300 units, while total vehicle sales in the month rose 58.4% on year to 456,500 units, the official said.

Snides remarks: The floodgates are opening...within a couple of years I expect Chinese built cars to be available in every country on earth, and if President Bush has his way, on the Moon and Mars also.

In the same way that virtualy everything is "made in China" today, cars built in China will be exported everywhere.

Is this a good thing you ask?...well it will make cars more available to more people in third world countries...is this a good thing? Well if you have a car you need a road, and if you have a road it must go somewhere...so just as the Internet has brought access to information to even the most remote and primative parts of the earth, so will the auto infrastructure bring speed and ease of transportation to those places as well...is this a good thing?