YOU MAY HAVE noticed an interesting table of figures in this newspaper yesterday showing that the cost of petrol, insurance, parking, licensing and maintenance for an average car has actually risen over the past three years despite deflation on the overall consumer price index.
It was interesting by omission. What it did not show and what the first chart here does show is that the average purchase price of cars has fallen by 35 per cent since October 1997 - definitely much more than the decline on the CPI over the period.
So much for the vaunted cartel of motor traders that has in the past been so good at keeping prices up. Economic downturn allied with growing parallel imports of cars by non-authorised distributors has done much to make car ownership more affordable.
But of course you still hear reports that car ownership is increasingly beyond the means of the average household. It may be true but the second chart provides another perspective. It shows the number of registered cars on the road per hundred persons in countries for which I have been able to find figures.
Going from the top, you first have car-mad United States and Japan, wealthy countries that can afford this indulgence and have built their urban landscapes around it. At the bottom you have China and the Philippines where people are just as eager to have cars but cannot afford them.
Now notice where Hong Kong shows up, right near the bottom with only 5.65 cars per 100 persons. Hong Kong is less wealthy only than the United States and Japan on this list and, if wealth governed car ownership, our rate of ownership should be much higher.
