Traffic authorities and police in China's fourth-largest city on Sunday launched a crackdown on unlicensed taxis, which were partly blamed for triggering a rare strike by licensed drivers last week.

"Illegal drivers will be fined 30,000 yuan (about 4,412 U.S. dollars) to 100,000 yuan and their illegal earnings will be confiscated," said a spokesman with the Chongqing Traffic Administrative Law Enforcement Corps.

Unlicensed cabs at transport hubs will be a focus of the crackdown, he said. He acknowledged that it's difficult for law-enforcement personnel to identify illegal cabs, which are mostly private cars with no visible cab signs.

"But we will strive to achieve a good result within three or five months," he said.

Licensed drivers here launched a rare strike on Monday and Tuesday to protest several issues, including insufficient supplies of compressed natural gas (CNG), which fuels most cabs in the city, competition from unlicensed cabs, high fines for traffic violations and the unfair division of fares between drivers and companies.

The strike became violent as some strikers gathered on business streets to stop working cabs and pull out the drivers.

The city government promised to reduce the fees that drivers pay to their companies, increase CNG supplies and step up efforts to crack down on unlicensed cabs.

Bo Xilai, secretary of the Chongqing Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China, met with representatives of cab drivers on Thursday, pledging to help increase their income.

"There are more than 20,000 cab drivers in Chongqing, behind whom are more than 20,000 families. If their incomes increase, the lives of these families will improved. Our officials should always bear people's interest in mind," Bo said.

(Xinhua News Agency November 9, 2008)