OREANDA-NEWS. On 19 February 2009 was announced, that Turkmenistan is introducing new plates for private vehicles. The introduction of new plates marks the launch of a single electronic data base for registration of private vehicles. Old plates will be also valid.

"This decision was necessitated by the increase in the number of cars in the country and the need to align the registration system of the traffic police service with modern requirements," the Turkmenistan.ru correspondent reports from Ashgabat quoting the traffic police department of Turkmen ministry of internal affairs.

New plates will be issued to private vehicle owners upon registration of their vehicles with the traffic police department. New plates carry eight symbols. Two first letters stand for series. They are followed by four digits and two letters in the end to identify the vehicle's regional affiliation. For instance, in a KJ 3856 AG plate KJ stands for series, 3865 - digit number, and AG tells us that a vehicle is registered in Ashgabat.

Car plates for state organizations, diplomatic corps and foreign entities and citizens will remain unchanged.