Beijing to extend new license plate lottery

Transport authorities confirmed Thursday that Beijing will extend its license plate lottery policy for another year in order to ease the city's traffic congestion.

Potential buyers will still be required to participate in a lottery next year in order to obtain new purchase permits and more specific measures are under discussion, said Li Xiaosong, deputy director of the municipal commission of transport.

Li made the remarks amid public doubt regarding the fairness of the policy, as many people who have attempted to obtain a license plate through the lottery have failed, while others who have won plates have not used them.

Li said 173,000 new vehicles were registered through the lottery last year, 617,000 fewer than in 2010.

The total number of Beijing-registered cars reached 5.18 million at the end of November.

A recent report said the name "Liu Xuemei" appeared on seven consecutive lists of lottery winners.

The name was dubbed the "Lottery Emperor" and spurred public doubt about the system.

Over 1.3 million people have applied for the lottery. Among such massive lists of names, it is common to see some names repeated, said Rong Jun, an official with the commission.

However, each applicant's ID card corresponds to a unique application number, so seven different people named Liu Xuemei entered the lottery and won, he said.

In fact, there are about 20 different people named Liu Xuemei in the lottery applicants system.

The license plate lottery was launched by the municipal public security, human resources and social security bureaus and is supervised by officials and experts to ensure fairness and transparency, Li said, adding that every applicant has an equal chance of winning a new plate.

The municipal government introduced a regulation in January 2011 that curbed the growth of new vehicle sales by capping the total number of cars that could be registered in 2011 at 240,000, about one-third of the number registered in 2010.

The regulation requires potential buyers to participate in a lottery every month to get new purchase permits. Those who fail to win new plates are automatically entered in subsequent rounds.

Beijing also restricts private cars from being driven one day a week, based on the final digit of the car license plate. Traffic congestion has been a problem for many Chinese cities. The cities of Shanghai, Guangzhou and Guiyang have also capped passenger vehicle registrations through license plate lotteries and auctions.