Almost one in six Chinese can drive: ministry

Almost 200 million Chinese can drive a vehicle, about 15 percent of the 1.3 billion population, the Ministry of Public Security said Thursday.

Sixty-nine percent of licensed drivers can drive a car, according to the ministry's statistics.

About 19 million Chinese obtained a driving license in 2009.

A total 16.7 million vehicles were sold in China last year, bringing the country's total vehicles to more than 186 million, figures showed. Around 41 percent of the vehicles were cars and 51percent were motorcycles.

The ministry attributed the rapid rise in vehicle numbers to the government's stimulus policies, which included lower taxes on small-displacement automobiles, subsidies to replace old vehicles and subsidies to farmers buying vehicles.

Source: Xinhua