Guangzhou to restrict car ownership
September 27, 2012 Category Environment, Pollution
Guangzhou is cracking down on pollution by restricting car ownership although it is one of China’s biggest car manufacturing centers. The city introduced license plate auctions and lotteries that will roughly halve the number of new cars on the streets. The crackdown by the China’s third-largest city is the most restrictive in a series of moves by big cities that are putting quality of life issues before short-term economic growth, something the central government has struggled to do on a national scale. The measures have the potential to help clean up China’s notoriously dirty air and water, reduce long-term health care costs and improve the long-term quality of China’s growth. “There’s a recognition finally that growth at all costs is not sustainable,” said Ben Simpfendorfer, Managing Director of consulting firm Silk Road Associates. The central government in Beijing is pushing back against further restrictions on vehicles because of worries about the huge car industry, said An Feng, Senior Adviser in Beijing to transport policymakers. Polluting factories being pushed out of increasingly affluent cities in southeastern China are being turned away by poorer cities in western and northern areas unless they install costly equipment to control emissions, said Stanley Lau, Deputy Chairman of the Hong Kong Federation of Industries, a trade group representing manufacturers that employ nearly 10 million workers in China.
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