Gasgoo.com (Shanghai February 10) - The Beijing Municipal Commission of Transport said that it had received 306,865 applications from private citizens for the city's second license plate lottery held this February, the Beijing Times reported yesterday. Additionally, over 7,100 companies sent out a total of 13,386 applications for commercial vehicle allocation.
Beijing's first license plate lottery, held last month (see picture), saw 17,600 winners walk away with registration plates, from a grand total of 187,420 entrants. The remaining near-170,000 participants were automatically registered for February's lottery. Along with new people deciding to enter, this month sees an increase in the total number of participants of over 137,000.
According to the lottery rules, the city's Public Security, Civil Affairs, Human Resources and Social Security Bureaus will first examine and verify all submitted material before posting a list of qualified applicants on its website at the end of the month. The actual lottery will take place on February 26, again with only 17,600 spots open for personal vehicles and 4,800 for commercial ones.
Beijing is one of the world's most congested cities, with over 4.8 million cars registered in the city. The license plate lottery is the latest in a series of measures the city has taken to combat this problem. A total of 240,000 license plates will be issued for the year, approxmately one-third of the number of plates issued in 2010.
