From Monday onwards car-owners now have the chance to pick their own numbers for their car license plates alongside the existing method of random allocation that is still in place.

The new, personalized plates look the same as the old ones.

Most cities allow two letters on their license plates, but Beijing allows only one letter. For cars in the capital, there must be one letter within the first four characters. In addition, the letters "I" and "O" are forbidden. The fifth character must also be a number rather than a letter.

The custom license plate service will supplement the current way of being given a choice of one plate out of ten available plate numbers. The two methods will be used concurrently for the time being.