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Beijing is to reduce the number of vehicle license plates it issues each year through a lottery system in the hope of reducing air pollution.
Starting in 2014, the number of plates issued each year will be reduced from 240,000 to 150,000, with the hope of cutting vehicle exhaust, which contributes to the city's ongoing air pollution problem.
However, city residents have complained that the new measure will make it more difficult to buy a car, and said the city should come up with a more efficient method of distribution instead.
According to Beijing's transportation authority, the move will help the city contain the number of motor vehicles within 6 million by the end of 2017.
Beijing has used the license plate lottery system since 2011 to control the number of vehicles on the roads. In October, a record 1.66 million people applied for the 17,600 license plates issued to individuals each month.
"Compared with other cities with policies to limit car purchases, Beijing's lottery system is the least efficient," said Yang Hongshan, deputy dean of the public governance institute at Renmin University of China.
He said that official records show that many people have won plates in the lottery but not used them to buy cars, which is unfair for those who really need a car but cannot get a permit.
Regarding the new quota of 150,000 plates each year, he suggested that the government should think of a way to distribute at least half of them to those who do need a car.
A Beijing resident who only gave her surname Liu said the city government should scrap the lottery system altogether and increase the cost of license plates, perhaps by adding an environmental protection tax.
Jin Haixing
(China Daily 11/06/2013 page1)
