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- 家元
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Chinese Cities Aim To Eliminate Unlicensed Cabs
Beijing city officials launched a crackdown on unlicensed taxis in the capital following a recent spate of high-profile strikes by licensed cabbies in three Chinese cities and counties.
Transport authorities launched a 50-day campaign to rid the city of unregistered 'black taxis,' as they are known. The campaign began on Wednesday and is scheduled to last until Dec. 31. Unlicensed drivers will face steep fines,ranging from 10,000 yuan ($1,464) to 20,000 yuan, if they are caught. So far, 10 drivers were found to be operating taxis illegally, according to an official with the transportation department's law-enforcement division.
The official denied that Beijing's decision to crack down on unlicensed cabs was related to the strikes in other parts of the country. He said the city had targeted black taxis prior to hosting the Olympic Games in August, but they started to reappear once the Games ended.
Officials in Shanghai and in Shenyang, a large city in northeast China, also have taken measures to alleviate potential unrest among licensed taxi drivers, according to state media reports from those cities. In Shanghai, city officials scheduled meetings with taxi representatives to hear their concerns and said they planned to set up a government hotline for drivers.
In Shenyang, the capital of Liaoning Province, more than 40 unlicensed cabs have been seized since a campaign against them was launched on Nov. 8, the reports said.
Along with concerns about fees, competition from unlicensed taxis has been a recurring complaint among drivers. In Chongqing, where almost all of the city's 9,000 cabbies went on strike last week, authorities imposed heavy fines on unlicensed drivers following the strike. In Yongdeng County in northwest Gansu province, officials promised to eliminate black taxis within 10 days after a strike broke out earlier this week.
Meanwhile, some cabbies in the south China resort city of Sanya continued their strike into a fourth day. About 100 striking drivers protested in front of local government offices on Thursday and demanded a detailed planto address their grievances, official news agency Xinhua reported.
Yi Zhijun, the vice director of Sanya Communications Bureau, said that about two-thirds of Sanya's 1,000 licensed drivers had returned to work as of Thursday evening. |
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