China had 340 million motor vehicles on its roads at the end of June this year, the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) announced on Wednesday, Xinhua reported.
Some 250 million of them are cars, including 198 million private vehicles and 12.42 million were registered over the last six months. This total is down by 1.4 million year-on-year.
The number of new energy vehicles reached 3.44 million by the end of June, accounting for about 1% of the total.
China now has 422 million licensed motor vehicle drivers, with just over 14 million people obtaining their licenses in the first half of the year, according to the bureau.
Also, there were 66 Chinese cities with over 1 million cars, while 11 cities including Beijing and Chengdu, had more than 3 million by the end of June.
Meanwhile, China’s giant automaker Dongfeng Motor Corporation (DFM) has held discussions with the Egyptian minister of trade and industry over manufacturing electric cars in Egypt, the Egyptian ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.
“With the production of electric cars in Egypt, the government aims to meet the needs of the local market and then to export to Arab, African and European markets,” Egyptian Trade and Industry Minister Amr Nassar said in the statement.
The ministry said that DFM is earnestly studying the manufacture of electric cars in Egypt, adding that the government provides investment incentives in this field in the light of global tendency to use electric cars.
Li Zhengrong, vice president of Dongfeng Automobile, a subsidiary of DFM, expressed his company’s keenness on entering the Egyptian market.
He said DFM has a long expertise in manufacturing electric cars, passenger vehicles and buses, noting that the Chinese automaker will export a number of electric cars to Egypt to test them under the Egyptian climate for any required modifications.