What is special about the car with license plate 80-NG, why is it worn on many supercars?

Meaning of NG license plate

According to Circular 58/2020/TT-BCA of the Ministry of Public Security, the license plate with white background, black numbers, red "NG" series is issued to vehicles of diplomatic missions, consulates and foreign staff carrying diplomatic identity cards of that agency. In particular, the license plate of Ambassadors and Consuls General has the registration number 01 and an additional red line across the middle of the numbers indicating nationality and registration order.

The arrangement of letters and numbers on foreign car license plates is generally regulated as follows:

- The first group consists of two numbers, which are the local vehicle registration codes.

- The second group is the symbol for the name of the country or international organization, consisting of 3 natural numbers.

- The third group is the registration series: red symbol "NG" for vehicles of diplomatic agencies, red symbol "QT" for vehicles of representative agencies of international organizations, symbol "CV" for vehicles of administrative and technical staff carrying official identity cards of diplomatic agencies, consular offices, international organizations, symbol "NN" for vehicles of foreign organizations, representative offices, and individuals (except Ambassadors and Consuls General; heads of representative agencies of United Nations organizations; and administrative and technical staff carrying official identity cards of diplomatic agencies, consular offices, and international organizations).

- The fourth group is the vehicle registration order, consisting of two natural numbers, from 01 to 99.

The locality code, country name code, registration series and registration order are separated by a hyphen (-).

Car of the Austrian Embassy in Vietnam (Photo: VF).

According to regulations, the license plate number 80-001-NG-01 as shown in the photo above is understood to be an Austrian diplomatic vehicle (001) registered at the Department of Road and Railway Traffic Police (80) for the head of a diplomatic agency (serial number 01), here the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Austria in Vietnam.

Privileges of diplomatic vehicles and legal regulations

Diplomatic vehicles are exempt from tax and enjoy diplomatic privileges and immunities when used in Vietnam; therefore, many people take advantage of this to "evade taxes", for example, arbitrarily changing the purpose of use or "illegally" transferring vehicles with diplomatic license plates, or vehicles that have expired and do not complete transfer, re-export, or destruction procedures on time.

The most common form is to buy and sell temporarily imported diplomatic car quotas to attach diplomatic plates to supercars and luxury cars to "avoid" a large amount of tax. The purchase price depends on the remaining working time of diplomatic officials in Vietnam, ranging from several tens of thousands to more than 100,000 USD/quota. In this way, players have the opportunity to own expensive imported cars at only 1/3 to 1/2 the price of cars that have to pay full taxes and fees to get "white plates".

Regarding the privileges when participating in traffic, if the driver of a diplomatic vehicle is entitled to immunity from prosecution, when a collision occurs, the Traffic Police will send the file to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for diplomatic handling. Thus, if the vehicle has a diplomatic license plate, but the driver does not have a diplomatic identity card and is driving on the road, violating traffic laws, he will still be handled according to the provisions of the Vietnam Road Traffic Law.

In addition, to put an end to the situation of cars with "diplomatic" license plates in Vietnam that have expired but have not completed transfer, re-export, and destruction procedures on time, and are still "circumventing the law" in circulation, the authorities have tightened the inspection and revocation of registration certificates and diplomatic license plates that have expired for transfer, and at the same time checked the information of the person whose name is on the vehicle registration certificate for the number of cars that have not completed transfer procedures and notified the Ministry of Finance.

In particular, the Ministry of Transport has been assigned by the Prime Minister to direct the vehicle inspection agency to stop the vehicle inspection for vehicles that have not completed the transfer procedures for vehicles with diplomatic license plates according to the list announced by the Ministry of Finance.

Some other regulations on license plates: