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Xinlu Liang

Honda Hon Tat-kwong has been driving children to school in his 13-seater minibus for the past 10 years, and he has never felt so anxious about rising fuel prices.
The price of diesel shot up from HK$15.40 (US$1.98) per litre in January to HK$17.75 per litre in October.
“The fuel costs of HK$5,000 to HK$6,000 a month eat up about 20 per cent of my income. And I still have to pay for maintenance, parking and insurance,” Hon said.
The 33-year-old’s woes have been piling on since the coronavirus pandemic struck last year, as frequent school closures kept children at home, and many students from mainland China returned there.
Warrance Travel, which Hon works for, has a fleet of 10 school buses of different sizes.
Before the pandemic, it had 15 drivers and the same number of minders who took care of the children along the way. Hon said the company had lost 40 per cent of clients, let go a third of its employees and seen its income plunge by 20 per cent.

The Hong Kong Land Transport Alliance, which represents more than a dozen transport groups, last week urged the government to regulate petrol prices and offer more subsidies to help the tens of thousands of struggling drivers of public buses, minibuses, taxis, trucks, school buses and container trucks.
The government’s earlier pandemic fund to help the transport industry offered one-off fuel subsidies for heavy-duty vehicles, non-franchised buses and school buses. Minibuses and taxis received a subsidy of HK$1 per litre of fuel or one third of their actual fuel expenditure for a year.
Hon said that at his company, every bus received a one-off subsidy of more than HK$30,000, equivalent to one month’s operating costs.
Hong Kong does not regulate petrol prices on a free market principle, but its pump prices are among the world’s highest because of the surging price of land for building petrol stations, along with higher costs related to importing, taxes, wages and marketing.
Latest data from the globalpetrolprices.com research platform shows Hong Kong to have the costliest diesel and petrol per litre among 164 countries and territories.

On Monday, diesel and petrol prices in Hong Kong stood at US$2.283 (HK$17.73) and US$2.648 (HK$20.61) per litre respectively – 103 per cent and 115 per cent higher than the international average.
In comparison, prices in Singapore were US$1.555 per litre for diesel and US$1.884 per litre for petrol.
School bus operators say what makes it worse for them is that they usually sign a two or three-year contract with schools and cannot raise their rates subsequently.
Hon’s company signed its latest two-year contract in April last year, when the diesel price was about HK$13 per litre, and has had to absorb the 36 per cent increase since then.
Five players dominate Hong Kong’s petrol retail scene – ExxonMobil’s Esso, Chevron’s Caltex, Shell, Sinopec and PetroChina – and operate a total of 182 petrol stations.
Why do Hongkongers pay sky-high prices for petrol when oil at multi-year lows?
Although prices are very similar among them, the city’s Competition Commission has found no evidence of price fixing between them.
But its latest report in 2017 highlighted some features believed to be hindering competition, including a greatly concentrated market and high barriers to entry, which made it difficult for new entrants to obtain sites for petrol stations and gain access to terminal storage facilities.
Hong Kong has about 18,000 taxis and 4,500 light buses running on liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), and they too have experienced skyrocketing prices.
According to the Electrical and Mechanical Services Department, prices at the city’s 12 dedicated LPG petrol stations have doubled to more than HK$4 per litre earlier this month, compared with May 2020.
The latest prices announced for November hit HK$5.09 per litre at two stations in Chai Wan and West Kowloon.
“When the price goes up, drivers have to pay,” said cabby Ip Kwok-wah, 61, who has more than 30 years’ experience. “As individual drivers, we take full responsibility for our profits and losses.”
Transport alliance calls for regulation of petrol prices, more government subsidies
The government declined to extend the transport industry subsidies that ended in June, saying the easing of social-distancing restrictions meant people could resume outdoor activities and travel more frequently again.
But Ip said restrictions on nightlife had not been lifted completely and it remained hard to find passengers after 10pm.
“The fewer customers you have, the more you have to drive around, and the more you drive around, the more money you pay for LPG,” he said.
In a written reply, the Electrical and Mechanical Services Department, which monitors LPG prices for vehicles, said the Hong Kong figures reflected global changes. International LPG prices had been rising for five months, causing higher prices at local filling stations, it added.
Auto-LPG prices at dedicated stations were set in accordance with pricing formulas stipulated in their operation contracts with the government, the department said, but non-dedicated stations set their own retail prices based on the market.


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Transport group appeals for help, as government pandemic subsidies for sector came to an end months ago
School bus drivers say they are stuck, cannot raise prices as contracts run for two or three years



Transport group appeals for help, as government pandemic subsidies for sector came to an end months ago.


Transport and logistics

Coronavirus pandemic

Coronavirus Hong Kong

Coronavirus pandemic: All stories

Running on empty: soaring fuel prices push Hong Kong’s bus, taxi drivers to the breaking point

Transport group appeals for help, as government pandemic subsidies for sector came to an end months ago School bus drivers say they are stuck, cannot raise prices as contracts run for two or three years

Transport group appeals for help, as government pandemic subsidies for sector came to an end months ago

School bus drivers say they are stuck, cannot raise prices as contracts run for two or three years