Hong Kong should find a way to allow the taxi trade and ride-hailing services to compete and complement each other, even though cab owners blame competition from unregulated platforms for lowering the value of their licences, lawmakers have said.
Debate on the way forward for the trade followed calls from some industry leaders for the government to buy back their taxi licences for HK$5 million (US$637,100) each, an idea Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu ruled out on Tuesday.
Owners argue that their licences have consistently depreciated because of the rise of online ride-hailing platforms such as Uber.
The number of taxi licences has remained constant at 18,138 since the government stopped issuing them in 1994. However, licences can be transferred and traded, leading some drivers and investors to use them as a form of speculative asset.
The price of a licence and a taxi dropped from a record high of HK$7.66 million in 2009 to HK$2.02 million this month, resulting in significant potential financial losses for owners.
The value also fell sharply in 2019 as social unrest rocked the city, dropping from HK$6.02 million to HK$4.96 million.
