Over 78.72m privately owned vehicles on Chinese roads

There were a total of 78.72 million privately owned vehicles on Chinese roads by the end of 2011, chinanews.com reported today. The figure, which comes from the National Bureau of Statistics' Statistical Communiqué of the People's Republic of China on the 2011 National Economic and Social Development, is 20.4 percent higher than that from 2010. The number of personal use (both privately and publicly owned) vehicles totaled 105.78 million units.

Additional statistics from the communiqué show that a total of 36.9 billion tons of cargo was transported in 2011, a 13.7 percent increase from the previous year. Cargo turnover volume measured 15.9 trillion km, a 12.1 percent increase from 2010. 9.07 billion tons (equivalent to 16,231 standard sized shipping containers) of cargo was sent to ports, with 2.75 billion tons of that destined for foreign trade.

The NBS communiqué, released every year, contains detailed information regarding traffic, telephone usage, utilities and tourism in China.