After many legal problems and determining the rights of the auction winners, from July 1st, the national license plate auction system began operating after 30 years of "gestation".
"A girl in Phu Xuyen district just got the right license plate number for her KIA Morning" - the news spread all over social media along with a picture of a lemon yellow A-class car made Do Trung Hieu (born in 1981, in Hanoi ) restless.
Some people in the beautiful sea hunting community, after hearing the news, immediately set off towards the southern gateway of the city. They brought large sums of money and were ready to spend billions of dong to own a car with a market price of only about 400 million.
For decades, the market for beautiful license plates has been continuously carried out without any official statistics or management. The state loses budget revenue, and those who want to own them have to "beg" and convince the car owner to agree to resell. The auction of license plates has been discussed and piloted many times but has still failed for many reasons.
More than 30 years after the proposals of progress and regression, on July 1, the National Assembly 's pilot resolution on auctioning car license plates will officially take effect. From now on, people across the country will have the right to choose and compete to own the desired series of numbers, attached to their cars.
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| Mr. Hieu bought the Kia Morning for 2 billion VND . Photo: Hong Quang. |
30 years of proposals
Through many events, experts agree that the license plate auction project has three main milestones. Starting in 1993, the Ministry of Public Security implemented the plan of "issuing self-selected license plates" or also known as auctioning beautiful license plates. Hai Phong Police then became the pilot unit to issue license plates in the form of self-selection and fee collection. After two months of implementation, 94 cases of self-selected license plates out of a total of 198 registered vehicles, accounting for 47%.
In 2008, the Prime Minister approved the policy and assigned ministries to study and implement the license plate auction project. The Ministry of Public Security once again met with the Ministry of Finance, Justice, Transport, etc. to initiate the auction project. However, the draft inter-ministerial circular was not issued due to legal problems.
In 2017, the Prime Minister decided to draft a resolution on auctioning car license plates. In the following five years, after many times of receiving, editing and perfecting the draft, on November 15, 2022, the Resolution on piloting auctioning car license plates was approved by nearly 95% of the delegates at the National Assembly at the 4th Session of the 15th National Assembly.
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| On the afternoon of November 15, 2022, the National Assembly passed a draft Resolution on piloting the auction of car license plates. Photo: National Assembly. |
For the first 20 years, the reason for the project's failure was unsolved legal problems, according to Nguyen Truong Giang, Vice Chairman of the National Assembly's Law Committee. In the Government's submission to the National Assembly on the pilot vehicle license plate auction project, there were up to 4 policies that were different from current law provisions. Notably, according to Mr. Giang, the Road Traffic Law and its implementing documents consider vehicle license plates as documents of state agencies, which means prohibiting civil buying and selling transactions.
“Thus, the auction of car license plates is a new policy, different from the provisions of a number of current laws, so submitting to the National Assembly for promulgation of a resolution on pilot implementation is in accordance with the provisions of the Law on Promulgation of Legal Documents on,” Mr. Giang said, adding that considering the pilot auction of car license plates is necessary. This is reflected in two aspects. First, for the people, it meets their needs in choosing and using beautiful license plates according to each person’s concept. Second, it contributes to increasing revenue for the State budget, preventing profiteering from granting the right to use car license plates.
Meanwhile, before the Lunar New Year 2023, Ms. Yen Nhi (in Ha Long, Quang Ninh) planned to spend more than one billion VND to buy an electric SUV. However, this plan was stopped after she heard about the July 1 milestone - the day the Resolution on piloting the auction of car license plates officially took effect.
The 32-year-old woman admitted that she was not willing to spend too much money on “super nice” number plates, but only wanted to choose numbers that were “not too bad”, instead of leaving it entirely to chance.
“Each person has a different opinion about whether a number is beautiful or ugly. The number pool is also very large, so I believe that everyone has the opportunity to own a number plate that suits their opinion. As for me, sometimes as long as the number is “not ugly”, I feel happy to spend money to bid for it,” said Nhi.
Dealing with license plates is not a commodity of the market economy.
In a house of about 100 square meters, among all kinds of vehicles from cars to motorbikes, all of which have in common the fact that they have special license plates, Mr. Do Trung Hieu (in Hanoi) seemed confused when trying to remember the beautiful license plate numbers he once owned. This man is a famous figure in the license plate collector community in Hanoi. Many of them have been transferred to people who share the same hobby.
When asked about the license plate auction starting on July 1, Mr. Hieu seemed quite excited and confirmed that he would participate. However, he said he was still hesitant because the rights of the license plate auction winners have not been specifically guided, especially when the draft on license plate management by identification code is expected to take effect on July 1.
From the owner’s perspective, Mr. Hieu stated that the auction winner is the owner of the property. They should have the right to dispose of their property, including buying, selling, giving, etc. At the same time, the authorities need to specify: Can the person who wins the license plate auction identify the license plate? If at least one of these two things cannot be done, the value of the license plate will be greatly limited.
During the process of developing the project, the opinion on the rights of the license plate auction winners was also discussed throughout the meetings of the Government and the National Assembly.
At the Standing Committee meeting on the afternoon of October 11, 2022, Secretary General of the National Assembly Bui Van Cuong said that the rights of car license plate auction winners should be studied and expanded in the direction of allowing them to inherit, give, donate or attach to a new car (when the old car is broken)... because if that is the case, then auction participants will be willing to pay a high price.
"If they limit rights, they think that after the auction is over, they won't be able to use it much later, so they only pay a certain price. If they have a lot of rights, the winning price can even reach billions per license plate, but if they limit rights, they can only get 200-400 million," Mr. Cuong analyzed and proposed to consider piloting this content.
Meanwhile, Chairman of the National Assembly’s Law Committee Hoang Thanh Tung said that more caution is needed in granting rights to license plate auction winners. According to him, this is a new issue, currently being piloted, and the legal consequences have not yet been visualized, so caution is needed, especially regarding the rights of the auction winners and the transferees.
According to Mr. Tung, license plates are not only ordinary assets but also a tool for State management, so the highest goal is not to collect a lot of money through auctions, but there needs to be appropriate restrictions to serve management.
As the unit advising on the drafting of the decree, Colonel Nguyen Quang Nhat, Head of the Department of Traffic Accident Investigation and Resolution (Traffic Police Department) said that initially, this agency studied two options. In the first option, the auction winner will be allowed to use the license plate and will not be allowed to transfer it. In the second option, the auction winner will be allowed to use, transfer, or mortgage the auctioned license plate.
However, because this is a pilot project and license plates are not a normal commodity of the market economy but rather a combination of State management and people's needs, the drafting agency has researched and proposed a solution that satisfies both of these requirements.
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| When the draft on license plate identification management is issued, only auctioned license plates will be allowed to sell vehicles with the license plate. Photo: Hong Quang. |
“The person who wins the license plate auction will have the license plate completely identified. At the same time, when the draft on license plate identification management is passed, only the auctioned license plate will be sold with the license plate, vehicles with regular license plates when sold must return them and have their license plates revoked,” said a representative of the Traffic Police Department, affirming that this is a factor that ensures the rights of the auction winner.
During the process of drafting the decree, the representative of the Traffic Police Department said that to have the 4 pages of the Resolution approved, there were thousands of pages of documents, research, and complete comments. Their efforts, along with the coordination of related units, have now been transformed into the auctions that are about to begin, which, as Mr. Nhat said, is "both pleasing to the people and beneficial to the State budget".
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