Car plate auction price drops

Writer: Han Ximin  | Editor: Holly Wang  | From:  | Updated: 2019-07-08

The auction price for car license plates in June dropped astonishingly by 37,914 yuan (US$5,520) on average to 31,959 yuan, compared to the result of the auction in May.

For June’s auction, which was postponed to Friday, the car plate administration office offered 16,188 plates for individual bidders, 13,200 more than the amount in May.

The result showed the lowest successful bidding price for a plate was 24,200 yuan and the average price was 31,959 yuan.

Starting in June, the office rearranged the quotas for lotteries and auctions by adding 20,000 plates in June, 10,000 plates in July and 10,000 plates in August, instead of evenly dividing them between June and December. The additional 40,000 plates in 2020 will be evenly divided across the 12 months.

The quotas were increased to ease vehicle purchase restrictions to boost vehicle sales amid a spate of policies to promote stable consumption growth.

However, after the auction Friday, some residents questioned possible loopholes in the car plate bidding system, because some found they could see the bidding prices of other bidders by jumping to the third-party browser after accessing the official WeChat account of the Shenzhen transport bureau. In a response, the bureau said the system loophole had been fixed and bidding results were not affected by the system loophole.

In a statement, the bureau said no one could get the actual number of bidders participating before the process was completed, so they couldn’t predict the lowest bidding price. The result was not affected and the bidders’ sensitive information, like ID and phone numbers, had not been leaked.