China’s Ministry of Transportation mulls incentives for car-sharing industry

Editor’s note: A version of this post by Zhang Ke first appeared on Yicai Global, the English-language financial news service of Shanghai Media Group. Yicai Global is one of just two dedicated Chinese news feeds connected to the Bloomberg terminal.

China’s ministry of transport’s (MOT) latest draft policy concerning car renting industry indicates that it will encourage car timeshare rental practice and ensure preferential parking rates for timeshare rental cars.

The ministry states in its draft policy on administration regulations for the car rental industry published today that the government encourages public parking lots in busy areas such as urban business centers and government affair centers to provide convenience for the parking of timeshare rental cars.

The ministry of transport also advocates exploring such measures as parking charge preferences to promote on-street parking spaces for rental cars to provide more convenience for the users and encourage car-sharing practice.

However, with general shortage of traffic resources in large and medium-sized cities, car timeshare rental services may intensify urban traffic congestion and lead to more difficulties and severe consequences to urban life if it is developed wholly based on the market, warned an official in charge of transport services division

As for regulations that will apply to timeshare rental industry, the ministry will position the industry reasonably with the premise of insisting on the strategy of giving priority to public transit development, the official told Yicai Global. It will establish car releasing mechanisms, coordinating timeshare rental services and urban traffic modes such as public transport and taxis.

With increasing use of mobile internet technologies and new-energy vehicles in recent years, timeshare car rental (also known as car-sharing) practice has been spreading across such metropole cities as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen.

More than 40 companies have so far been set up in the timeshare car rental industry, and the total number of vehicles on offer in the industry exceeds 40,000, 95 percent of which are new energy vehicles, show data released by the ministry.