Beijing to launch car plate lottery website

The official website for the Beijing car licence plate lottery will be launched after midnight tomorrow, Meng Qiao, deputy director of the Beijing Municipal Transport Committee, was quoted by The Beijing News as saying yesterday.

In a bid to rein in the massive traffic jams plaguing the city, the Beijing municipal administration has come up with a number of plans, including the licence plate lottery.

People without plates, which can be transferred, would have to apply for new ones if they bought new or second-hand cars or were given a car as a gift, Meng said. Every month, 20,000 sets of licence plates will be made available.

As a result, according to the Beijing Morning Post, there has been a significant drop in the number of buyers at some second-hand car markets in the city.

Apart from registering online, Sun Hongjun, head of the committee's legal affairs department, said Beijing residents could also go to the government offices of 16 districts and counties under the municipality's jurisdiction and apply for licence plates during working hours.

'Valid applications submitted before the eighth day of every month would go into the lottery scheduled for the 26th day of the month,' Sun said. 'Those whose applications aren't drawn or who apply after the eighth day will be eligible to enter the next draw the following month.'

Under the new policy, the number of new licence plates issued in Beijing will be slashed by nearly two-thirds - from 800,000 this year to just 240,000 next year. Eighty-eight per cent will be reserved for individuals, 10 per cent for government or the public sector and the rest allocated to commercial owners.