Chinese New Year celebrated by 152,000 number plate

Former horse-racing 'king' Liang Qiwei battled with an un-named female bidder over the number plate 2318 in a Hong Kong auction.

To celebrate the Year of the Ox, the government organised a sale of licence plates on Saturday 7 February 2009. The attraction of the number '2318' lies in it's Cantonese pronunciation, "Yee sam yat baat" -' which reads "Easy life and prosperity".

Bidding started at HK$52,000 (about £4670) but, when it reached the HK$1m mark, just two intrepid punters were left scrabbling over the prize. The mystery woman finally won the contest with an astonishing HK$1.7 million - more than £152,000.

Not to be outdone, Mr Liang settled later for the registrations '3218' at HK$750,000 (£67k) - the second highest result in the sale - and 'MY8' at HK$440,000(£39K).

The numbers are both gifts for his sons. Mr Liang does not, however, consider the prices to be excessive: "I can easily pay HK$2 million to HK$3 million for a horse," he said, "so what I paid for the licence plate numbers is nothing in comparison.'

At a similar event last year, businessman Zhang Chengguang paid a record HK$16.5m - nearly £1.5m - for the number '18'. These latest auction results re-affirm, on a wider global scale, the confidence investors here at home are demonstrating in personal registrations during an uncertain economic climate.

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