Gov't spends 80 bln yuan on car procurement
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China.org.cn, November 18, 2011
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Government officials' preference for luxury cars from abroad seems to have been unaffected by a State Council notice urging them to buy more domestic brands. |
Government departments' spending on vehicles rose to 80 billion yuan (US$12.6 billion) last year, 10 billion yuan more than the year before, with luxury vehicles from BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Audi featuring prominently, the China Youth Daily reported yesterday.
The expenditure on vehicles took up 14 percent of total government purchasing.
China imported 813,600 vehicles valued at US$30.64 billion last year, up 93.3 percent and 99.7 percent respectively from a year earlier, according to figures from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.
The China Youth Daily said yesterday that it was a "scandal" that government departments should be spending so much on premier cars.
A vehicle supplier list published by the Central Government Procurement Center in 2009 names 38 authorized manufacturers, including 21 domestic manufacturers and luxury foreign brands, but the State Council urged departments to buy more domestic cars to promote China's auto industry.
But Chinese makers struck very few deals with government departments, the newspaper said.
Chery Automobile Co Ltd, the largest private manufacturer in China, sold some 3,400 cars to government departments that year, a rise of just 0.4 percent from 2008 and only 2.3 percent of the total, the report said.
In February this year, the finance department of northwestern China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region hit the headlines when it was revealed it had spent 9 million yuan on 25 Audi cars in one transaction. And of a total of 71 cars the department purchased that month, only one was a domestic brand.
China requires government departments to disclose how much is spent on officials' trips, vehicle purchases and receptions to combat misuse of taxpayers money.
(Shanghai Daily contributed to the story)
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