The US fast food giant Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) recently opened its first drive-in restaurant in China's capital Beijing, a city with 620,000 private cars.

Designed exclusively for drivers, the restaurant has a 100-meter drive-in lane, separate windows to order and pick up food, and eye-catching signboards.

A driver would need only four minutes to order, pay the bill and pick up his food, said Zhang Xiaoyan, a public affairs executive with Beijing KFC Co. Ltd.

Compared with a walk-in KFC outlet, a drive-in restaurant costs 5 00,000 (US$60,241) to 800,000 yuan (US$96,386) more in construction. But the management is confident its debut will receive a warm welcome.

"The number of private cars in a city is vital to the very existence of a drive-in restaurant there," said Xu Zhen, public affairs manager of KFC's regional headquarters in Shanghai.

The large, ever-growing number of private cars in Beijing, the Chinese people's love for Western snacks and shorter time at dinner tables in a fast-paced society all called for the birth of drive-in restaurants, Xu said.

A car, like a computer or an air-conditioner in the 1990s, a color TV or a fridge in the 1980s, a wristwatch or a bicycle in the 1970s, has become more affordable to many Chinese families since the end of the 20th century.

Official figures suggest that China sold 1.544 million cars in the first half of 2002, nearly the same in volume as its auto production over the period. Private owners, above all, took up 68 percent of all the buyers.

China's commercial hub Shanghai and the southern metropolis Guangzhou have both reported over 110,000 private cars.

In Shenzhen, a boomtown in the southern province of Guangdong, every 100 households own 18.5 cars and car purchase is the citizens' second largest expenditure.

Even in hinterland cities like Chengdu, capital of the southwestern Sichuan Province, the number of private cars is climbing at 25 percent a year and is likely to top one million by 2004.

Ningwei, a suburban town with a population of 49,000 in the rich eastern province of Zhejiang, has over 600 private cars -- which means one out of every 20 families owns one.

This is just the beginning of an auto age that is soon to put China at the wheel, analysts say.

"As cars enter our life, we're very likely to do more things in our cars, embrace more novelties and even change our lifestyle," commented one of them.

Car owner Lin Ning, 32, said she was looking forward to a drive-in KFC outlet in Shanghai, where she is a white collar worker with a foreign firm.

"Just a few years ago, I could not quite understand why the Westerners had to rush so much for their meals," said Lin, "Now that a drive-in restaurant has finally come to China, it's hard to resist its temptation. In fact, it's just like when we were first introduced to the clean, brightly-lit KFC and McDonald's restaurants some ten years ago."

But for most Chinese people who are still dreaming of their own cars, a fast food restaurant is the ideal choice only when they are in a hurry. In their leisure time, they still prefer more elegant places with wider choices of menu.

"This does not mean we have lost the Chinese market, and a drive-in restaurant is not just for fun," said Xu Zhen, the KFC executive in Shanghai.

According to Xu, KFC had mapped out plans to open more drive-in outlets in Beijing in the coming five years, and debut the same outlets in major cities including Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou.

"We have every reason to believe that drive-in restaurants will mushroom in China soon enough," he added.

(Xinhua News Agency December 28, 2002)