Question No. 7
Reply by the Hon. Michael Leung, Secretary for Transport,
to a Question by Prof Hon POON Chung-kwong
in Legislative Council on 11.3.87
Question: Is Government aware of any indications of
speculation activities being carried out with regard to taxi licences, and, if so, does Government have any plans to tackle this problem?
Sir,
The value of a taxi licence has fluctuated in the
past few years : it fell from $237,000 in 1978 to $161,000
in 1984 and has risen rapidly to $450,000 at the time of the
last tender exercise in January this year.
In real terms,
however, allowing for inflation, the average premium of a
taxi licence has actually gone down by as much as 23% over
the last 10 years.
i
The Transport Advisory Committee has set up a
Sub-Committee under the chairmanship of Mr Jackie Chan with
a majority of unofficial members to carry out an overall
review of the taxi policy, including the question of
speculation of taxi licences. A recent survey undertaken on
behalf of the Sub-Committee has found tender price for
licences to be following the market price, and that the 'factors contributing to the rise in the value of the licence
include:
(a)
the profitability of taxi operation, which has a
direct bearing on the demand for taxi licences;