Guangzhou and Shenzhen will ease up on car ownership restrictions in a bid to boost China’s flagging auto sales — one of the country’s important economic drivers, said Caixin.
Guangzhou and Shenzhen are planning to increase the quota of new license plates issued each month, a policy that has traditionally been used to help control traffic and pollution by limiting the number of cars on the road, China Daily reported. Other cities in the province will not be allowed to restrict the number of plates, the report said.
Both moves are part of a broader policy being rolled out by Guangdong, one of China’s wealthiest provinces where Guangzhou and Shenzhen are located.
The move comes just one month after the National Development and Reform Commission, China’s state planner, issued a broad policy calling for all cities that limit license plates to increase quotas. It specifically said all such cities should issue 50% more license plates in 2019 compared with 2018 and 100% more in 2020.