Today in China

Last July, the price of N93 petroleum jumped up from 3.96RMB/L to 4.26RMB/L. and this week it jumped again to 4.65! In summer I usually use 100liter a month which represents an increase of 69RMB a month. Okay la! I can live with that… But what about the taxi drivers?

Let’s say that a taxi driver is driving for 400km a day and for this uses 32 liters. If the driver works 20 days a month, it makes a total consumption of 640 liters a month and an increase of more than 400RMB per month. Which is more than the government help given to the taxi drivers since last July.

No wonder the taxi drivers are asking the government for some more subsidies.

Another solution would be to push this increase to the customers. Taxi companies already did that in the past. They have some tricky way to do this in a not so obvious way. Your cab would still be 1.6RMB but the basic fare of 10 yuan would be charge after 3km instead of 4km. They made a similar change for the 1.2RMB taxis back in 2000 when the basic fare went down from 5km to 4km.

Related news: Yesterday, thanks to JayJay, I discovered a Sinopec Gas Station just near our office in Lido. A really small hidden gas station… Why is it so important? Well, Sinopec Gas Station are not so common and they are the only ones accepting the card CMCC offered me a few weeks ago. I now have gas for free!!! ^_^

Sources
China Daily - 2006 03 27
People’s daily - 2000 07 17 - basic fare going down from 5km to 4km