Chinese consumers bought 1.36m cars in the first four months of this year, with at least 800,000 of them going to private buyers, Xinhua reported. This confirmed the trend noted last year when 60 per cent of cars sold went to private buyers, the first time that the proportion exceeded 50 per cent. By mid-2003 the total number of private cars in China stood at more than 10m, having
increased from 1m in 1992 and 5m in 2000. However, China still has only one privately owned car for every 120 people, well behind the 70 cars per 100 people in North America and western Europe.