Automobile numbers could be capped

As many as 5.5 million cars will be on Beijing's roads by 2015, although the growth rate will stabilize in the next five years, a senior local transport official said.

Beijing's car community will hit 4 million by the beginning of next year and will then grow by an average of 300,000 cars a year, compared to the present rate of 400,000, to reach 5.5 million in 2015, Liu Xiaoming, director of the Beijing municipal committee of communications, said.

Liu said the municipal government would not restrict the number of cars on the road at the moment, but would not rule out doing so in the future.