Car license plate auction: No concept of 'nice license plate' or 'special license plate warehouse'

Minister of Public Security To Lam presented the Proposal on the draft Resolution on piloting the granting of the right to choose to use car license plates through auction. Photo: Van Diep/VNA

The Ministry of Public Security has twice reported to the Government for permission to pilot the registration of license plates with fee collection for optional license plates in 1993 and the auction of license plates in 2008 in some localities, but due to problems with legal basis and procedures, it has not been expanded.

Since then, the Government has directed the Ministry of Public Security to preside over and coordinate with ministries and branches to research and develop a pilot project and found it necessary to have some regulations different from current laws such as the Law on Public Asset Management, the Law on Road Traffic and the Law on Property Auction to meet the needs of a large number of car buyers who want to own license plates according to their personal wishes; improve the efficiency of road vehicle management, increase revenue for the state budget and avoid public opinion that there is a lack of transparency or profiteering in the issuance of license plates. Recently, the National Assembly Standing Committee agreed to add this content to the Law and Ordinance Development Program in 2022.

Presenting the Government's Proposal, General To Lam, Minister of Public Security, said that after studying, reviewing and evaluating the law, reality and international experience, the Government found that it was extremely necessary to develop a National Assembly Resolution on piloting the granting of the right to choose to use car license plates through auction. The Proposal proposed a 3-year pilot.

According to the Draft Resolution, the license plates put up for auction are unregistered car license plates, the Ministry of Public Security plans to issue new ones for cars of enterprises, organizations and individuals (white background, black letters and numbers), which will be publicly posted on the National Electronic Information Portal on Asset Auction, the Electronic Information Portal of the Ministry of Public Security, the Electronic Information Portal of the Traffic Police Department (Ministry of Public Security), the online auction electronic information portal of the asset auction organization and on the mass media 30 days before the auction. Enterprises, organizations and individuals in need can choose license plates of all provinces and centrally run cities nationwide to register to participate in the auction (including license plates of provinces and centrally run cities that are not the place of permanent residence or headquarters of the auction participants). License plates that are not selected for auction, license plates that fail the auction will be transferred to the vehicle registration and management system for registration according to the regulations of the Ministry of Public Security. It is noteworthy that the auction winning license plate can be transferred, given away, or inherited according to regulations; the auction winning license plate cannot be kept to register another vehicle.

The draft Resolution is built in the direction of specific regulations on the starting price of each license plate put up for auction, thereby determining a specific number, applying it consistently and transparently in all auction cases, the starting price is the lowest price and suitable for practice. Specifically, region 1 (including: Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City) 40 million VND; region 2 (including the remaining localities) 20 million VND.

According to Minister To Lam, during the process of drafting the Resolution, the consistent principle of the Ministry of Public Security was not to introduce the concept of “beautiful license plates”, “special license plate stocks” or “beautiful license plate stocks”… Determining the starting price of car license plates for auction is extremely complicated because the license plates are “special public assets”, the high or low value depends on the market and the level of “beauty” according to the preferences of the auction participants. The starting price is only the initial price, during the auction process, the competitiveness between the auction participants will determine the winning bid price of that license plate.

Agree with the 3-year pilot

Chairman of the National Assembly's Committee on National Defense and Security Le Tan Toi presented the Report on the examination of the draft Resolution on piloting the granting of the right to choose to use car license plates through auction. Photo: Van Diep/VNA

Presenting the review report, Chairman of the National Defense and Security Committee Le Tan Toi said that the Committee agreed with the necessity of issuing the Resolution to meet the needs of a large number of car buyers who want to own license plates according to their personal wishes; to ensure strict and effective management of road vehicles; and to increase revenue for the state budget.

Regarding the scope of the pilot, the Chairman of the National Defense and Security Committee said that there were opinions suggesting limiting the scope of the pilot to a number of localities or only piloting in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. However, the Standing Committee of the National Defense and Security Committee agreed to pilot nationwide the granting of the right to choose to use car license plates through auction. This is also the basis for summarizing, evaluating, and recommending that the National Assembly amend and supplement relevant laws when the pilot ends for stable and long-term implementation.

Regarding the type of car license plates to be auctioned, the Chairman of the National Defense and Security Committee said that there was a proposal to expand the pilot auction to include yellow-background, black-lettered car license plates (vehicles operating in the transport business) and to expand the auction to include motorcycle and motorbike license plates. However, the Standing Committee of the National Defense and Security Committee agreed to limit the pilot auction to white-background car license plates only, and not to pilot the auction for yellow-background, black-lettered car license plates, or motorcycle and motorbike license plates. The National Defense and Security Committee also agreed to only pilot the online auction.

Regarding the pilot period, the draft Resolution stipulates a pilot period of 3 years from the effective date of the Resolution. On this issue, the majority of the National Defense and Security Committee agreed with the draft, because they believed that a 3-year pilot period is appropriate for agencies to have enough time to implement, test, summarize, and evaluate the pilot. In fact, most of the pilot resolutions recently issued by the National Assembly stipulate a pilot period of 3 to 5 years. However, some opinions proposed to stipulate a 2-year pilot period to promptly summarize, evaluate, and recommend legalizing this content in sync with the amendment of the Road Traffic Law. Some opinions proposed to stipulate a combination in the direction: The pilot period is 3 years from the effective date of the Resolution or the pilot is implemented until this content is stipulated in the law, but not more than 3 years from the effective date of the Resolution.