There are a minimum of million Beijing citizens and counting who are a disappointed each month. 'Have money cannot buy' seems to be the new mantra in Beijing where Government restricts number of new cars released on its streets to just 20,000 per month. Buyers have to opt for a lottery system to decide who will be able to buy and who will not during that month.
Thanks to this cap which came into effect in January 2011, today there are more than 1 million people who are applying for buying a car. Limited number of car registrations and a long queue of buyers mean that there is an even longer list of disappointed customers. The local authorities in-charge of this lottery system said that in August there were 1.05 million applicants (110,000 were first timers) while only 19,926 registrations were issued car buying license.
Jia Ruiming, a school teacher by profession has applied every month since Jan 2011 for a car buying license. "I haven't checked the results today, but I don't count on having luck this time. For the first few months, I was eager to check whether I got a registration as soon as the results were released. I gradually gave up and would only check when I thought of it after many days," added Jia.
Currently, Beijing awards 1 licence for every 53 applications and this is expected to worsen. Beijing introduced this lottery system to keep a strict control over car ownerships, to only 240,000 per annum. This system of allocation has been termed as unfair by certain classes who feel that the Government is favoring the rich and is unfair to ordinary citizens.
It was noticed that number of cars on Beijing roads had increased fourfold from 1 million in 1997 to 4.76 million in 2010 and hence the Government in China decided to step in and curtail this flood of vehicles by limiting its purchase. Another ruling regarding city wide congestion charges that are expected to come into force in the next five years is also likely to dampen the spirits of potential car owners further.
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