Sales of passenger vehicles fitted with carburettors rather than ‘greener’ fuel-injection
systems might be banned in 47 Chinese cities.
According to AsiaOnline.com, legislation has been drafted and is being considered
by the State Economic and Trade Commission (SETC). Insiders say however that
the regulations are almost certain to be approved.
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State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) officials say that these
new regulations, likely to come into force at the beginning of May, will apply
to vehicles with less than six seats and weighing less than 2.5 tons.
The rules will probably be widened in October to include vehicles weighing
up to 3.5 tons.
A ‘grace’ period of two months will be granted to car manufacturers, to allow
them to adjust their manufacturing schedules and to sell the remaining carburettor-fitted
vehicles they have in stock.
The 47 cities affected by the ban are provincial capitals, municipalities directly
under central government and the coastal and state-certified tourism cities.
These include Zhanjiang, Beihai, Zhuhai, Shenzhen, Xiamen, Guilin, Qinhuangdao,
Yantai, Lianyungang, Dalian, Qingdao, Wenzhou, Nantong, Suzhou, Ningbo and Shantou.
Four months ago, the deputy director of the State Bureau of Machine-Building
Industry, Zhang Xiaoyu, vowed to introduce new vehicle pollution objectives
that emphasised central control and phased implementation.
Mr Xiaoyu said that the specific goals are to achieve Europe’s anti-pollution
standards of the early 1990s by the end of 2000; to reach Europe’s standards
of the late 1990s by 2005 and to achieve international standards by 2010.
Discriminatory tax rates encouraging the use of ‘greener’ vehicles have already
been approved by the State Council. Tax rate policies are set to be published
soon, AsiaOnline.com said.
