CAAM opposes car license plate limit in Beijing

Shanghai, November 13 (Gasgoo.com) A senior industry official recently said that his auto association would firmly pretest against the plan to limit the number of vehicle license plates in Beijing, Jinghua newspaper reported Thursday.

Gu Xianghua, Deputy Secretary General of China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) told the newspaper that specific dissension regarding the plan has already been handed over to China's chief administrative body -- the State Council -- early this week.

He said that amid the current economic downturn more efforts should be made to stimulate domestic consumption instead of stopping it, and the auto industry is counting on those efforts to maintain the growth momentum.

According to a recent Xinhua news report citing sources familiar with the matter, the figure of vehicle license plates will be limited to 100,000 per year in the capital city as of January 1, 2009.

If this measure is implemented, the vehicle sales in the city will sharply decrease, and about two-thirds of the auto dealers in Beijing will have to close their stores, the report said.

Beijing has already launched a new traffic control policy that will limit private cars on the road based on the even-odd number of their license plates. The measure, which aims at reducing pollution in the Chinese capital, started on October 13 and will continue until April 10, 2009, and has removed up to 800,000 cars from the road on a daily basis.