Nursing graduate Shi is feeling the benefits of surging growth in vehicle financing on the mainland.
After recently finishing nursing school, Shi, who declined to give her full name, needs to commute to her job at a Beijing hospital.
Until recently, people like Shi would have been forced to take a crowded bus or even ride a bicycle as the cost of a car was out of reach. Now with easily obtained car loans, she can get her own set of wheels.
'I would like to get a car to commute every day but do not want to rely on my family financially to get it,' she said. 'A loan is the best option.'
While the rest of the world's car markets have been battered by the credit crunch, vehicle sales on the mainland are booming, thanks to tax cuts and government subsidies.
Mainland passenger car sales last month rose 90.18 per cent from a year earlier, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers said yesterday, paving the way for record sales for the full year.