BEIJING -- Winning rate for Beijing's car registration lottery has dropped to less than 2 percent in August, marking the lowest rate since the car plate lottery scheme was launched last year, local authorities said Sunday.

Among the accumulated 1.05 million private car applicants, only 19,926 were given the right for car registration Sunday when the city's 20th license plate lottery was held, a spokesman with the Beijing car registration lottery office said.

The Beijing municipal government ushered in the car plates lottery scheme in January last year to limit the number of vehicles on the road.

Under the scheme, only 240,000 new private car plates are issued every year, and 20,000 every month.

About 200,000 people applied for car registration in January last year when the first license plate lottery was held in the city.

But the winning rate has been shrinking with the growing number of applicants.

Beijing now reports more than 5 million vehicles, statistics with the Beijing Municipal Traffic Management Bureau show.