Big patacas for Macau cab licenses

Would-be taxi owners in Macau on Friday submitted tenders in excess of HK$1 million for each of the 150 taxi licenses on offer.

Macau's Civil and Municipal Affairs Bureau said it had received 663 tender proposals - more than four times the number of licenses available.

The starting bid was HK$200,000.

The decision to expand the taxi franchise was first mentioned by Macau's Chief Executive Edmund Ho Hau-wah in his policy address, when he said the rapidly growing tourism industry was putting increasing demands on the territory's transportation system.

Currently there are 800 taxis in the Macau SAR serving a population of 513,000.

Although the Macau Government Tourist Office said it had not received complaints from tourists on the difficulty of getting taxis, a travel agent at the Macau Maritime Ferry Terminal told The Standard taxis were hard to find during rush hours.