The last issue of Shanghai Star carried a story about the government’s decision to suspend the purchase of official cars for one year.

Licence plates for official vehicles will also be auctioned in the same way as those for private cars, in order to control the number of motor vehicles on the roads as well as to increase transparency about the purchase of official cars and to show fairness.

Compared with some other cities, which try to alleviate traffic congestion by restricting the number of private cars, the new action of the Shanghai government is praiseworthy. And no doubt it will be of some help in easing the traffic situation in the city. But as to how effective it will really be, it is still too early to say.

Shanghai is actually not the first city to issue such a suspension of the purchase of official cars. It was reported that Southwest China’s Yunnan Province issued a similar ban in 2003. The provincial government ordered government sectors, State-owned units and loss-making State-owned enterprises to stop buying cars for a year. Those which urgently needed cars required specific approval from the relevant government sector.

Under the strict ban, the whole province purchased only 168 cars throughout the year. Most were standard cars purchased by township governments. However, when the ban was lifted in 2004, a strong rebound in car purchases occurred in the province. In the first five months alone, different government organs and units bought 255 cars. About 167 of the new cars were luxury sedans, the most expensive of which costing 880,000 yuan (US$106,024), much more than standard models the province recommended. Five years ago the province suggested that such cars should not cost more than 250,000 yuan (US$30,120) unless they were for provincial level officials.

Such a rebound in car purchases for officials may not happen in Shanghai. According to Jiao Yang, the municipal government spokeswoman, the city would introduce a system requiring all departments of the government and the Party to meet strict tests to gain approval before purchasing official-use vehicles.

But another question remains ?is the problem of traffic congestion mainly due to the large number of official cars?

A story published in News Weekly last November studied the situation in Beijing. Among the 2 million motor vehicles running in the capital, official cars made up only 36 per cent of the total, although they were also responsible for 80 per cent of traffic volumes because of their far higher frequency of use. They are on the roads seven times more often than private cars, making them the principal source of traffic congestion.

The analysis given in a story published recently in the Shenzhen Business Post said because all the on-road costs of official cars came out of government funds, it was not surprising that there were so many official cars on the streets on weekends and holidays.

The situation in Beijing may be of some relevance to Shanghai. The government’s ban may result in a temporary halt to the increase in the number of official cars but it is still far from solving the problem.

A more direct way to deal with the situation would be to set up a system that would make all expenses of government officials transparent to the public. If that system could be set up, not only would the problems resulting from excessive expenditure on official cars be checked ?the problem of the too-frequent use of official cars for private purposes would be solved at the same time.

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