Govt removes 15-year limit on life span of privately owned vehicles

Privately owned automobiles in China are no longer required to be scrapped after 15 years on the road, starting from Wednesday, which analysts said will boost the country's used car market.

A new regulation, published by the Ministry of Commerce and effective from Wednesday, removes the former maximum life span of 15 years for private cars.

Instead, it now allows private car owners to keep their vehicles until they reach a mileage of 600,000 kilometers, or if they fail to meet standards on safety, emissions or noise.

A private car usually covers 20,000 kilometers per year, so it could be used for 30 years theoretically, in accordance with the new standard, twice the previous maximum life span, Wuhan-based Changjiang Times newspaper reported Wednesday.

The new regulation is good news for the used car market and after-sales service market, the newspaper quoted Zhang Guanghong, head of the Association of Secondhand Car Dealers in Hubei Province, as saying.

But the use of old private cars will still face possible limits if local authorities decide to raise their environmental standards on car emissions, an anonymous secondhand car dealer in Bengbu, East China's Anhui Province, was quoted by China National Radio as saying Wednesday.