The price of a new license plate in Shanghai hit a record high in March as demand for private cars in the city grew despite local government controls on vehicle registration.

In the monthly auction, which ended at noon on Saturday, the average bid for a plate was 91,898 yuan (14,790 U.S. dollars), 8,327 yuan higher than the February average, according to official data from the Shanghai municipal government.

The lowest individual bid was 90,800 yuan, 7,500 yuan higher than February.

Records have been broken many times since auctions began in 2011.

In an effort to curb rising prices, the government released 9,000 new license plates in March, the same figure as last month.

A total of 23,589 individuals registered in the auction this month, slightly down from February, and only 38.2 percent received a license plate.

China is now the world's largest auto market and many of its big cities struggle with gridlock and other traffic-related problems.

Shanghai is the only Chinese city to use an auction to control plate supply. Beijing has imposed a cap on the number of plates issued each month and introduced a lottery system to distribute them among buyers.

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