Beijing Daily reports the Beijing Traffic Management Bureau says 22,079 vehicles have been registered since January 1, 2007. The department handled more than 2,400 registrations on the busiest day of the year so far.

An official from the Jinghai Vehicle Management Station says about 60 percent of the new vehicle owners are not permanent local residents. He says it is easy for non-Beijingers to register new vehicles because they can use their temporary residence permit.

A lot of the new vehicles have been registered by people who plan to drive back to their hometowns for the Spring Festival. The Jingchao Vehicle Management Station official says this phenomenon has directly led to the huge increase in vehicle registrations.

An official from the Beijing Traffic Management Bureau reveals 2,880,000 vehicles are already registered in the city, 71.8 percent of which are private-owned. Under the current growth rate, the number will exceed 3,000,000 vehicles in May and hit 3,300,000 before the Olympics in 2008.

Experts say the number of registered vehicles in Beijing is not disproportionately large compared to big international cities like London, Tokyo and Paris. But people drive their cars much more often in Beijing than in other cities, resulting in severe traffic congestion.

The administration has promised to deal with the increasingly poor traffic conditions by developing public transport and improving roads management.

The number of vehicles on the roads in Beijing has soared in the last decade. There were 1 million cars in the city in 1997 but more than 2 million by August 2003.