What does Road Traffic Safety have to do with lucky numbers?
Nearly twenty years ago, one vehicle license number fetched close to 25,000 Euros in the first public auction of license plates in Guangzhou. Auctions continue to be held bimonthly in Chinese cities, but chances to obtain a plate with the desired number combination have become close to zero. The government has maintained an ambivalent position between labelling the madness for lucky numbers as superstitious belief and benefit from it. On 24 April, 2006, the People’s Daily (Renmin ribao 人民日报) announced the result of the first auction:
The government makes use of public resources – Guangzhou: One car license plate fetches ¥237,000.
Monthly auctions are held, the proceeds of which are managed by the Finance Administration.
Guangzhou, 23rd of April. Journalist Li Gang reports: Despite all the controversy, Guangzhou City held the first public auction of car license plates as planned on 22nd and 23rd of April.
On the 22nd of April, a total of 152 out of the 160 number plates to be auctioned were sold adding up to the amount of 7.306 million Chinese Yuan.
Because of the “auspicious” license plate “粤 (Guangdong) APC888”, there was a back-and-forth competition with tens of thousands of Yuan as bidding unit. After 52 rounds of bidding, it was finally sold at the exorbitant price of 237,000 Yuan. This was the first auction of lucky number plates since the abolition of payment of a fee for selecting a number plate for cars in Guangzhou on 1st of September 2004.
According to information disclosed by the Guangzhou Finance Administration, “888”, “999”, “666” and some other numbers have always been favored for vehicle license plates, but the government has been reluctant to make a decision on how to use this type of public funds wisely. The Guangzhou Road Traffic Safety Management Regulations, which are planned to come into effect later this year, contain clear regulations stating that: through approval by the People’s Government of Guangzhou, the purchase of license plate numbers will be implemented for special motorized vehicles. Starting this month, auctions of lucky number plates will be held in Guangzhou once a month. There will be 300 number plates per auction. It is expected that a total of 2,700 lucky numbers will be auctioned in an entire year. The revenue from the auctions will be added to the city’s treasury, mainly used for the social welfare fund for traffic accidents, and partly used for the construction of transport infrastructure.”
(Translated by Tamara Titz).