Bicycle rationing ends for Chinese

Press, 14 October 1986, Page 16

Bicycle rationing ends for Chinese

NZPA-Reuter Peking China’s one billion people own a quarter of the world’s bicycles and demand for top brands is so great that the Government has raised prices for the first time in 20 years. The price rises are an attempt to let market forces, rather than State planners and hard-to-get ration coupons, decide who buys what bicycle. The 200 million bikes in China rule the road. Rushhour in cities does not mean bumper-to-bumper cars but a confrontation at crossroads of thousands of black .two-wheelers. The noise is not a cacophony of car horns but the musical clink of bicycle bells.

But even though Chinese factories turn out millions of bicycles each year, there have not been enough good ones to meet demand because under a topsy-turvy price system, unpopular low-class brands used to cost more than top-grade ones.

Last month the cost of a top-brand Flying Pigeon

bike at a Peking department store rose from 159 yuan ($88) to 211 yuan ($117).

There have been similar price rises for other top brands and smaller rises for medium-grade bikes, but the price of low-grade bicycles has not changed.

Buses in China’s cities are dirty and overcrowded, so most people use bicycles to get to work, carry their children, friends and all manner of goods, including grasshoppers and live chickens.

"Most people use a family bicycle at school and buy their own when they start work,” said Zhu Ying, a Peking city official.

“Because people expect to use it for up to 20 years, they want a top brand and not a low-grade one.”

But, until last month you could not buy one of the top three brands without a ration ticket from your work unit. Each unit was given a few tickets a year, which were distributed on a rotation basis

or to model workers. “But some people did not want to buy a bicycle, so they resold the ticket for anything from 10 yuan ($5.85) to 100 yuan ($58.50),” Mr Zhu said. Now that the rationing system for bikes is being phased out, top-brand bikes can be bought with cash.

A bicycle showroom in Peking tells its own story. The 70 bicycles on display include only one Flying Pigeon and no Forever or Phoenix bikes, the other two top brands. But there is a big selection of White Hill, Plum Flower, Golden Deer and Red Flag bikes. “In my family, we have five bikes, all top brands,” said one factory worker. “I ride a Forever, the Mercedes Benz of Chinese cycles.” Pointing contemptuously at a White Hill, he said: “I would not buy one

of these even if I had no bike at ail.” The bicycle is likely to remain the main mode of transport for most Chinese people. Fears of pollution and a lack of good roads and petrol have led the Government to strictly limit the sale of motorcycles in cities, and cars are usually owned by work units, not individuals. There have also been price rises in a wide range of consumer goods.

“Firms should set the prices of goods according to their quality,” said a recently published report by the State Economic Commission. It accused State concerns of producing millions of yuan worth of unsaleable goods. “They should produce more and better quality items and stop turning out low-qual-ity goods that no-one wants to buy,” it said.