Beijing has vowed to prohibit the selective avoidance of "unlucky" numbers, normally deemed to include four, 13 and 14, in the registration of addresses, an official with the city's quality watchdog said yesterday.

"The numbers of storied buildings, units and door plates should be coded and registered in numerical order and no skipping or selective use of numbers should be allowed," said Zhou Qiaolin, an official at the Beijing Municipal Administration of Quality and Technology Supervision.

She said the prohibition, which is to take effect next month, will be included in criteria for setting building name plates and door number plates.

The new coding criteria mainly target new buildings rather than existing buildings, said Li Xiaobo, an officer with the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau which is supervising its implementation.

"Requests to skip the 'unlucky numbers,' though not that frequent, do occur," he added. "The new criterion is expected to root out the selective coding and registration of the door plates."

The latest move targeting entrenched Chinese numerology reflects the superstitious beliefs still held by some, who continue to prefer to avoid the number "four" because it sounds almost exactly like the word for "death" in Mandarin.

For the same reason, some Chinese are willing to pay extra to register car plates or phone numbers containing the number "eight" because it sounds similar to the words for "making a fortune" or "prosperity" in Mandarin and Cantonese.

The opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games, for example, officially began at 8pm on the eighth day of the eighth month in 2008.

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