Beijingers get back on their bikes


Competition between bike makers is becoming fierce
Office worker David Dai is one of a growing army of Beijing residents returning to two-wheeled transport.
But the 28-year-old does not rely on his own pedal power - like hundreds of thousands of others, he has bought an electric bike.
These battery-powered, and virtually silent, machines have become increasingly common on the streets of the Chinese capital.
With roads often clogged with cars - there are now four million vehicles in Beijing - they offer a speedy way to get around.
But not everyone seems to like them: government officials are unsure about how to deal with this explosion of electric bicycles.
Congested streets
China used to be known as the "kingdom of bicycles". In the 1980s, four out of five commuters pedalled to work on them in Beijing.
But as the capital's residents became richer following economic development, they ditched their bikes for four-wheeled transport.
Recent statistics suggest that only one in five city residents now use an ordinary bicycle to travel around.
In a matter of just a few years Beijing has gone from a city with few private cars to one where traffic jams are commonplace.
But many Beijing residents are now buying electric bicycles to avoid wasting time on congested streets.
"It takes only 10 minutes to ride my electric bike from home to work," said Mr Dai.

Hundreds of thousands of people have bought electric bicycles
"If I took the bus, I'd have to spend time waiting for it, and then I could be trapped in a traffic jam. It could take me half an hour to make the same journey."
These bikes are on sale everywhere, with shops sometimes clustered together. Their wares are lined up on the pavement in neat rows.
Zhang Zhiyong, the manager of a store selling a brand of electric bike called "Capital Wind", said it is easy to see why sales are booming.
"Beijing is not like other smaller cities - it's big. If people ride their bicycles to work, they get really tired. If they drive to work, the roads are often congested," he told the BBC.
"But an electric bike is environmentally friendly and convenient. Promoting the use of these bikes would benefit us all."
And they are much cheaper than cars. The most expensive model in Mr Zhang's shop is only 2,680 yuan ($390:£260).
Public outcry
But not everyone is convinced by the shop owner's argument.
Many ordinary bike riders complain that the fast, silent electric bikes that now whizz about the city are a menace to other road users.
Late last year the government announced it was going to issue guidelines on what could be considered an electric bike.
Officials initially planned to bring in rules that defined an electric bike as a something weighing less than 40kg and travelling at less than 20kmh.
A bicycle that was heavier and travelled faster would be considered an electric motorbike.

Bicycles once used to rule the roads in central Beijing
The owners of these larger machines would have to get a licence, register their motorbikes and buy insurance.
But the government scrapped the introduction of the new guidelines after a public outcry.
"There's been a big debate in China about exactly how to deal with electric bikes," said Vance Wagner, who works for a transport research centre linked to China's Ministry of Environmental Protection.
But with the number of electric bicycles increasing all the time, the government might find it hard to put off forever a decision on how to classify them.
"Many people don't realise that the population of electric bikes is actually growing way faster than the population of cars," explained Mr Wagner.
The sale of electric bikes has slightly dropped off recently as people wait to see how the government will tackle the problem of how to define one.
But, ultimately, it is something else that might kill off sales.
Some experts believe they are a stop-gap form of transport; a link between an ordinary bike and a car.
As Beijing car owner Richard Liu put it, cars give a clue to a person's status - the more successful they are, the bigger the car they own.
"I think 80% of Chinese people want to have a car, even if they don't have much money they will buy cheaper ones," he said.
So while they are popular now, electric bicycles might one day prove as unwanted as the pedalled variety.

Profile: Carlos Slim

Carlos Slim makes his billions from a wide range of investments
He doesn't bother with private jets, shuns flashy offices, and for most of the 1990s made do with a plastic watch.
And while he does have a laptop, he is adamant that he does not use it, saying: "I'm a paper man, not electronic."
Not the kind of attributes you might expect from someone who has now been named the richest man in the world by Forbes magazine.
Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim is now worth $53.5bn (£35.8bn). That puts him above Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, but unlike his US rivals, he remains relatively unknown outside of his native Latin America.
Family empire
There, he controls more than 200 companies. These range from telecoms, where he first made his fortune, to infrastructure, banking and retail.
In order to maintain his influence over his expanding empire, his sons and sons-in-law have been put in charge of many businesses.
One of the most significant in Mr Slim's empire is America Movil, Latin America's largest mobile phone company, which operates in 11 countries and serves more than 150 million customers.
His telecoms interests also extend to Telmex - the company he fought to take control of in 1990 when it was nationalised. It now operates around 90% of Mexico's telephone lines.
Mr Slim, whose heavy-set figure belies his name, also owns the Inbursa financial group and the Grupo Carso industrial conglomerate, whose interests range from retail stores to restaurants.
Meanwhile, the infrastructure firm he owns, Ideal, is working on a project to develop a shopping centre, schools and a hospital in Mexico City.
It's... my conviction that poverty is not fought with donations, charity or even public spending
Carlos Slim
The baseball-mad engineering graduate made enough money from working in property early in his career to invest in the stock market.
By the age of 26, he was worth $40m, but it was during the Latin American economic crisis of the early 1980s that Mr Slim made a name for himself as a man who could make money in a recession.
He was able to buy a number of struggling companies at very low prices before transforming their fortunes.
Like Mr Buffett, Mr Slim has done some canny deals in the stock market - not least, buying shares in Apple when they were $17 each. They are now worth well over $200.
Philanthropy scepticism
The son of Lebanese immigrants, Mr Slim is known for his philanthropy - though not on the scale of Mr Gates or Mr Buffett.
Most recently, he linked up with former US President Bill Clinton and Canadian mining figure Frank Giustra to launch an anti-poverty campaign in Latin America, and in March pledged $6bn for his three charitable foundations.
Wealth is like an orchard - you have to share the fruit, not the trees
Carlos Slim
In Mexico where, according to World Bank data, about 50% of people are living in poverty, many feel that he has not donated enough, especially given how ubiquitous his companies are in day-to-day life.
However his supporters say that some of that criticism is unfair, not least because of his relatively recent elevation to the ranks of the mega-rich.
And Mr Slim, has said he is not convinced that philanthropy is the best way to help people.
"(Bill) Gates has to study how he can (fight poverty) in the same way that Microsoft...succeeded in business, because charity has not solved the problem," he told USA today.
"It's based on my conviction that poverty is not fought with donations, charity or even public spending, but that you fight it with health, education and jobs."
Still working, the tycoon has indicated he has no desire to retire from business to concentrate more on charitable work, as Mr Gates has done.
As he said in a recent interview: "Wealth is like an orchard. You have to share the fruit, not the trees."
Foreign expansion
If you have yet to hear of Carlos Slim, that may be about to change.
In recent years the tycoon has sought to expand his businesses abroad, including investments in 2008 in the New York Times newspaper and in the struggling bank Citigroup.
In the UK he has been linked with investments in company behind the Independent and Independent on Sunday newspapers.
Analysts suggest he is trying to replicate his Latin American success on a global scale. That remains to be seen, but his rise to the number one spot on the world rich list shows that a global economic downturn is unlikely to slow his progress.
sandeep kumar srivastav
PGDM IIsem