MU88-88 sold for MOP400,000, 60 percent less than MT88-88

Auction prices of special car plates, launched by the Transport Bureau (DSAT), saw a sharp decrease compared with last year, Macao Daily News reported.
During an auction that took place on Monday, DSAT released 280 special car plates, separated into four price groups with initial bids of MOP100,000, MOP80,000, MOP50,000 and MOP20,000.
Plates MU88-88, MU66-66 and MU99-99 were sold for MOP400,100, MOP398,000, and MOP381,000 respectively, marking the three highest bids within this year’s auction. In 2015, a buyer paid more than one million patacas to obtain the plate MT88-88.
The second category, in which plates MU66-88, MU82-28, MU98-89 and MU99-88 were included managed to collect a total MOP413,000. The four plates were sold for MOP101,000, MOP132,000, MOP89,000 and MOP91,000 respectively.
Plates MU77-77, MU68-88 and MU82-82 were the most popular plates within the third group. Final prices for this trio were set at MOP202,000, MOP181,000, MOP138,000 respectively. The remaining plates in the third category went for prices between MOP51,000 to MOP93,000. Regarding the final group, the items were mostly sold for prices between MOP20,000 to MOP30,000.
Car dealers believe the price is dropping as a consequence of the current economic climate. Some car dealerships admitted to be not as enthusiastic about business potential as before because they still had unsold plates. “The economy is slowing down, therefore investments and returns are disproportionate,” an initial report noted.
The manager of a local car dealership, Mr Lam, said that his store’s monthly sales of plates in the first quarter was half of that registered last year.
DSAT received a total of 340 bids, around 300 less than last year. The final income of the auction was about MOP6.9 million, down by MOP4.2 million.