This Day, That Year

Item from May 4, 1997, in China Daily: Motorcycles are stealing the scene from bicycles and overshadowing automobiles on city streets and rural roads in China, where 1.2 billion people rely on 300 million bikes and less than 2 million passenger cars to commute.

People are enthusiastic about motorcycles, which are perhaps the best transportation method for a developing country. China’s motorcycle market has suffered a downturn in recent years because cities such as Guangzhou, Guangdong province, and Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, have banned them to control traffic congestion.

Last year, 1.7 million motorcycles were sold nationwide, down by 11 percent year-on-year, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.

As the motorcycle market started to become saturated, many manufacturers began to look for new growth opportunities.

In 2005, Chongqing Lifan Group started automobile production. Last year, the company rolled out an ambitious plan to build the world’s biggest green carsharing company, which will have 300,000 electric cars in its rental business by 2020.

In 2013, motorcycle manufacturer Sundiro Holding entered the business of building and selling yachts.

It invested in the Italian shipyard Sanlorenzo, aiming to set up a joint venture to make yachts of between 10 and 20 meters in the island province of Hainan.