This Day, That Year

Item from July 10, 1994, in China Daily: Shanghai Volkswagen, China's largest sedan maker, operates a new service center in downtown Shanghai. The center, capable of repairing 10,000 cars a year, is the 300th center the company has opened across the country.

China's automotive industry will be challenged as it strives to meet production goals while confronting the remnants of a central planning economy ... Statistics show that 95,000 Chinese-made sedans were sold in the first five months of the year, fewer than expected ... China, which has a population of 1.2 billion, has about 1 million cars operating now; 5 percent are privately owned.

Still known as the "kingdom of bicycles" just a few decades ago, China continues to embrace its new era of the automobile at an unprecedented speed.