Remarks by STL on regulation of ride-hailing services
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Reporter: First, how do you respond to the criticism from ride-hailing platforms that the 10 000 quota cannot meet market demand and is too conservative? Second, will you pledge to review the quota within the first few months upon the scheme's launch and to issue additional licences if the service supply fails to meet market demand and maybe drives up the fare?
Secretary for Transport and Logistics: The proposed four sets of subsidiary legislation contain a lot of details regarding the various requirements under the proposed regulatory regime. Among all the key requirements, one is very important - once we have issued licences for platform operators in the future, we will impose a requirement for the operators to store the relevant operational data and share them with the Transport Department. I believe that our mechanism and review should be based on data and take into account the various operating indicators.
At present, regarding the quota for the issuance of permits for ride-hailing vehicles, there have been a host of diversified views in the community for over a year or so. We have been taking a very careful, prudent and open-minded approach in listening to the various views and analysis provided. As a start, we would like to take a prudent and careful approach to ensure that our proposed regulatory regime will be achieved and implemented in a safe, smooth and progressive manner. Once we have issued licences to platform operators, we will immediately take into account and keep in view the various operating data available to us. I think this is a scientific, data-orientated mechanism and approach so that we can provide a very transparent, open-data analysis and assessment to the Legislative Council and the community, enabling us to take a progressive and forward-looking approach.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the remarks.)
Ends/Wednesday, May 27, 2026
Issued at HKT 17:00
Issued at HKT 17:00
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