Ye Qing, vice director of the statistics bureau of central China's Hubei Province, has often been mistaken for a chauffeur when driving his fellow officials to the office.

Ye fired his driver and rejected the car arranged for him by the local government, choosing instead to drive his own car or ride a bike to work to save taxpayers' money.

"After deducting wages for a driver and the car's operating costs, I can save 80,000 yuan (12,680 U.S. dollars) for my bureau every year," said Ye, who is also a deputy to the National People's Congress (NPC), China's legislature.

For years, Ye has worked to promote reforms for official vehicle purchases, urging authorities to reduce the number of official cars and to purchase cheaper cars for government use in order to relieve the public's concerns about extravagance and corruption.

Ye said he "won't miss the opportunity" to reintroduce the issue this year at an ongoing annual legislative session that opened Monday in Beijing.

"The government's expenditures on vehicles may surpass 400 billion yuan annually, far more than the official figure of less than 200 billion yuan," Ye said.

Efforts have been made to change the way official vehicles are purchased, with harsher regulations and stricter supervision slowly being implemented.

On Feb. 24, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) published a draft catalogue of vehicles offered for government purchases in 2012, featuring more than 400 domestic car models. The catalogue excludes foreign car brands such as Audi, Toyota and Buick from government procurement, as foreign brands are often significantly more expensive than domestic ones.

"The biggest hindrance in reform comes from those who have the privilege to use an official car," said Ye. But he said he has the support of the public.

He said reforms should be deepened to cut expenditures and allow for the creation of a transparent consumption list, adding that a nationwide reform plan has already been drafted.

The domestic auto industry has made significant progress in recent years and is fully qualified to supply vehicles for government procurement, said Luo Lei, vice general secretary of the China Automobile Dealers Association.

Back in the 1950s, China churned out its first V8 limousine - later known as the Red Flag CA72 - for late leader Mao Zedong. The car made a great stir at home and abroad when it appeared in a ceremony for the National Day holiday in 1959. Fifty years later, President Hu Jintao made an appearance at a similar ceremony, perched on a Red Flag limousine.

Red Flag limos have always been popular vehicles for government procurement, but have been gradually dwarfed by foreign-brand vehicles.

Professor Deng Lianfan from Central South University said the key to implementing the MIIT's new regulation is to establish a "perfect" supervision system.

By combining the supervisory forces of discipline inspection departments, fiscal departments and the public, sticking to a "domestic only" rule for vehicle procurement can become a reality, Deng said.

Although the rule may appear to be a form of protectionism, it is actually an international practice, Deng said.

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