CLP's June Bill Lands on 18,000 Permit Holders
The License on the Dashboard
A driver working out of Cheung Sha Wan keeps his urban taxi permit in a sleeve on the dashboard. Urban taxi licenses (the permit the Transport Department issues giving a driver the right to pick up street passengers, roughly 18,000 in circulation) traded above HK$7 million in 2014. By 2025 the same permits sold for considerably less, after ride-hailing services operated without legal status for years and the street monopoly was already gone in practice. The government's proposal to issue 10,000 ride-hailing permits, published by the Transport and Logistics Bureau this month, does not state what this does to the 18,000 outstanding. The bureau calls it a consumer protection measure. The 10,000 number is also a cap on a new category competing directly with the old one. A driver who bought a license in a market protected by law is now sharing the regulated space with an operator whose permit costs less. The bureau's paper names 10,000 as the cap. It does not name a date for the first permit to be issued.
June, Two Open Bills
4% fuel clause increase effective June. The fuel clause is the part of an electricity bill that adjusts for the cost of fuel used to generate power; when generation costs rise, the clause rises with them. This is the third such increase in eighteen months. For a driver charging an electric vehicle at home overnight, the monthly addition is small and calculable. For an operator running a commercial charging bay for a small fleet -- three vehicles, overnight cycles, shared industrial unit in Cheung Sha Wan -- the June bill is a harder revision. The permit cap and the fuel increase arrive in the same month. The policy paper for the cap is published; the Legislative Council (Hong Kong's legislature) has set no date for the second reading vote. The fuel increase has a date. CLP has set its date: June 1. The Transport and Logistics Bureau has not set one for the permit scheme.
CLP's fuel clause increase takes effect June 1. The driver in Cheung Sha Wan has that figure. What he does not have is a date from the Transport and Logistics Bureau on when the 10,000 permits enter the market and at what pace. The Legislative Council has not scheduled a second reading. The license on his dashboard has a resale price. That price moves when the issuance timeline is published. The bureau has not published it.