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CHINA'S car sales last month were up 48% year-on-year. Even allowing for oil-price jitters a year ago, which might have put off a few buyers, that's a healthy increase.
Government incentives and bank-induced liquidity played their part. But there's no getting away from the fact that cars are becoming a must-have item for many households in China.
As usual, Shanghai leads this trend. But owning a car here is not much of a status symbol any more. Petrol is cheap and cars are getting cheaper. Even a 3 series Beamer won't turn heads these days. You need something much more exotic.
With all this hardware entering the market, what do people actually do with their new cars? In many cases not very much, which is probably just as well. New buyers tend to be new drivers and have only just got a licence. Driving, where traffic allows, is definitely getting worse.
But while growing numbers are attracted to the car, this is nothing compared with the popularity of that great leveller, the Metro. Its tentacles extend everywhere, turning previously rural communities into city suburbs.
Roads may have become more anarchic and bad tempered, but in the underworld of the Metro a new sense of cultural calm has developed. This isn't through observing the “Seven Not's” that flash from Metro notice boards. It appears to have arisen from adverse comparisons in the Press between underground etiquette in Shanghai and Hong Kong. That couldn't be tolerated.
So even though the Metro becomes busier and busier, orderly queues now form either side of the train doors, allowing passengers to exit first . On the escalators, people now stand on the right and walk on the left. Just like in Hong Kong.
Back on the surface, drivers continue to fight traffic congestion and delays, usually caused by construction work on Metro line extensions.
* THE one child policy has moved on. One plus one can now equal two. If parents are both only children, they're now officially encouraged to have two offspring. The weight of the aging population is getting heavier. Unfortunately, reports are that young Shanghainese may prefer spending money on themselves and a pension rather than raising children.
* SHANGHAI'S GDP grew 5.6% in the first half, helped in no small measure by the financial sector. Since bank lending has been feeding all sorts of things, including the stock market, that's no great surprise. Whether this can crank things up to the government's objective of 9% for the year remains more doubtful.
