The first round in a public auction of license plates for new cars attracted few bidders on Tuesday in the capital of Guangdong province, which began placing limits on the number of vehicles that could be registered locally in July.

The event led to 796 car license plates changing hands, far fewer than the 4,363 the city had expected to see.

The average price of the licenses sold was 22,822 yuan ($3,500). Seventeen residents and four companies managed to obtain plates for 10,000 yuan apiece, which was the initial bidding price.

The rest of the license plates allowed to be auctioned off under the city’s quota system will go on the block during a second round of bidding, which is expected to take place in a month.

Cao Zhiwei, a member of the Guangzhou Committee of Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, said the response to the auction did not exceed expectations.

“The appropriate departments will have to do more to improve these auctions and attract more bidders,” Cao said.

In the following rounds, he said, the initial bidding prices should be lowered and the procedures for participating should be simplified.

Cao watched as the auction, which was held at the property-trading center in the city’s Haizhu district, unfolded on Tuesday.

The day before, 6,540 people had become winners in the first round of a lottery that is also being used to distribute license plates.

Of the people who entered that contest, 11.2 won a plate, making their chances of winning four times higher than those of participants in a similar lottery in Beijing.

Guangzhou’s decision to limit how many vehicles can be registered locally comes amid a rapid increase in the number of cars that are traveling the city’s streets.

Heavy traffic is blamed for hampering Guangzhou’s economy’s growth, worsening its air pollution and irritating many drivers and residents.

According to data from the city’s traffic police department, 2.5 million registered cars were traveling the streets of Guangzhou — which is home to more than 16 million people — by the end of June.

Parking spaces are in such short supply that 3.3 cars on average must compete for every one of them.

Guangzhou is the fourth city in the Chinese mainland to place limits on the number of cars that can be registered locally, following Beijing, Shanghai and Guiyang, capital of Guizhou province, in that regard.