Residents of Nanjing, the capital city of Jiangsu province, are busy buying cars to prepare for a possible quota on license plates following a restriction on issuing new car licenses in Hangzhou in the neighboring Zhejiang province, Nanjing Daily reported.

Many local residents received text messages from car retailers last week, telling them the license plate quota in Hangzhou might soon be introduced in Nanjing also and urging them to buy cars quickly.

Some car retailers sold twice their usual number of cars during the weekend and some even reduced the discounts they had been offering due to the large number of buyers.