some 2008 chinese vehicle statistics released

I've been too busy to blog much recently, but this news deserves a quick post. China's National Bureau of Statistics this week released the "Statistical Communiqué of the People's Republic of China on the 2008 National Economic and Social Development" (English and Chinese). The report includes updates to total vehicle population in China:

The total number of motor vehicles for civilian use reached 64.67 million (including 14.92 million tri-wheel motor vehicles and low-speed trucks) by the end of 2008, up 13.5 percent, of which private-owned vehicles numbered 41.73 million, up 18.1 percent. The total number of cars for civilian use stood at 24.38 million, up by 24.5 percent, of which private-owned cars numbered 19.47 million, up by 28.0 percent.

Also note production statistics: 9.35 million total motor vehicles produced in 2008, of which 5 million were cars.

It appears that that the detailed data is not yet available in the online statistical yearbooks.

I'll have a lot more to say about these numbers over the next few days. But if anyone wants to start crunching your own numbers, here's some good tables to start with:

NBS data on possession of civil vehicles through 2006
NBS data on possession of private vehicles through 2006