Guangzhou to issue car plates by auction, lottery

GUANGZHOU - South China's metropolis Guangzhou announced a plan on Tuesday to allocate the city's annual 120,000 new car registration quota through a dual model of auction or lottery.

According to the initiative, half of the new car plates in the capital city of Guangdong province will be given out through auction, a method first introduced by Shanghai to control the car number on the street.

The other 60,000 plates will be allocated through lottery, which has been utilized in Beijing since the beginning of last year to ease the capital city's deteriorating traffic jams.

Xian Weixiong, director of the Guangzhou Municipal Commission of Transportation, said the initiative is a combination of methods taken in Beijing and Shanghai.

The new measure will take effect on August 1 after soliciting public opinions, according to Xian.

The Guangzhou government announced on June 30 that a total of 120,000 new cars will be allowed to go on street in the coming year starting from July 1.

China has in recent years witnessed a fast growth of its automobile industry boosted by government support and huge demand.

By the end of 2011, China had more than 105 million automobiles, including 78.72 million privately owned vehicles, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

However, the car boom has caught many cities, from metropolis to second- to third-tier cities, unprepared as traffic jams worsened.

With the new initiative, Guangzhou became the fourth city in China to take restrictive measures on new cars.

Guiyang, capital city of southwest China's Guizhou province, announced in July last year a similar method as in Beijing to restrict the number of new car purchase.