Auction of car plates in top gear with average price up

Shanghai's car plate auction for June concluded on Saturday, with 135,370 people bidding for 18,267 car plates.

The average winning price for a car plate was 90,744 yuan (US$12,833) this month, up 926 yuan compared with 89,818 yuan last month.

The lowest bidding price for April was 90,600 yuan, an increase of 1,000 yuan from 89,600 a month earlier.

The success rate of 13.5 percent this month is 1.4 percentage points higher compared with the rate of last month.

Up to 146,851 people bid in last month's Shanghai auction for car plates, with 12.1 percent of participants victorious.

Starting from March, Shanghai's quota of car plates has been increased as part of a series of new policies to stimulate consumer demand for automobiles and boost the economy.

The city announced earlier that it has increased the supply of licence plates, which means adding 40,000 plates for non-commercial passenger cars starting from the end of March to the end of this year, according to the Shanghai Development and Reform Commission.