Rural China farmers joining the motor age.

By Don Lee
May 27, 2009

Source:http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-chinacars27-2009may27,0,7594127.story

Copyright 2009 Los Angeles Times 202 West 1st Street, Los Angeles, California, 90012 (108)


"Beijing is offering incentives to spur vehicle sales in the countryside. Sales are so brisk that dealers often run out of stock.

"Reporting from Chuzhou, China -- Like everybody else in his farming village, Zhan Changchun used to get around on a bicycle. This month, the 29-year-old walked into a local dealership, pulled out $7,300 in cash from his leather satchel and drove away with the family's first car: a seven-seat micro-minivan that's jointly produced by China's Wuling and General Motors."

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Zhan Changchun, who lives in a farming village in China, drained his savings and borrowed from relatives to buy a Wuling micro-minivan. (16) But they couldn't resist a slew of government incentives: a 50% sales tax reduction, elimination of hundreds of dollars in road maintenance fees, plus the biggest of them all, a 10% rebate for rural residents buying vehicles with engines smaller than 1.3 liter (27) Since buying the lowest-end model of Wuling's minivans, the Sunshine, for $5,270 this month, Zhang Wenming has been putting in 30 to 40 miles a day making calls on customers and loading materials for his home-decorations busines (54) Wu Gaifeng, sales director at one of two Wuling dealerships here, says he could have doubled his sales of about 400 units so far this year if only he had supply. (48) Zhu, the agricultural economist, estimates that half of the farmers in the eastern half of China can afford to buy a car, which translates to as many as 200 million people. (71) While new-vehicle purchases in the U.S. plunged 37% in the first four months of this year, they jumped more than 9% in China, to 3.8 million, with record volumes in March and Apri (35) This month, the 29-year-old walked into a local dealership, pulled out $7,300 in cash from his leather satchel and drove away with the family's first car: a seven-seat micro-minivan that's jointly produced by China's Wuling and General Motor (24) At the end of last year, there were only 65 million automobiles on the roads in all of China (71)

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