Members of the Guangzhou Municipal Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) called for better management of foreign nationals living in the city amid a rising number of criminal cases involving foreigners, the Guangzhou Daily said yesterday (March 26).

More than 10,000 foreigners are living or working illegally in Guangdong Province now, with many residing in the capital city of Guangzhou, according to official statistics.

The majority of foreigners fail to get registered with local police stations, as they move and travel a lot, the report said.

During the six-day annual session of the city's advisory body, which closed yesterday, the Guangzhou branch of Jiusan Society proposed that the city government set up a special taskforce to step up foreigner management.

The society suggested training grassroots community officers in language skills and cultural differences to better communicate with foreigners.

"Many foreigners, some with invalid permits, are staying in Guangzhou, running small businesses or working as employees, particularly in the catering industry, and the number is on the rise," said Zhou Zhaoyan, a member of the society.

"Some of them are involved in robbery, racketeering, assaults, drug trafficking, gambling and the sex trade," he said. "Ineffective management of foreigners pose social security hazards."

The proposal of the Jiusan Society has also been echoed in the motions tabled by deputies to the Guangzhou Municipal People's Congress.

He Zhihong, one of the deputies, said that the government should improve related regulations and that law enforcers should strictly carry out existing regulations instead of treating foreigners as "super-citizens."

At a recent conference on the management of the city's floating population, Zhang Guangning, mayor of Guangzhou, said that the city would strengthen the management of foreigners in accordance with the law.

He said they would categorize the city's foreigners as the floating population.

"Guangzhou welcomes foreign friends who respect China's laws and regulations, but will not offer 'super-national' treatment to them merely because they are foreigners or because they speak a foreign language and are difficult to communicate with," the mayor said.

Most of the foreigners who stay in Guangdong illegally are from the Middle East, Southeast Asia and Africa.

A chef with a Southeast Asian-style restaurant in Guangzhou, who identified himself as Ahmed, said he knew some foreigners who had entered the city as tourists, with no official permits to stay, and were working as chefs, teachers and performers.

"Some of them dare not apply for the official permit for fear of being fined or sent back home, while others have no idea of how to apply for the official permit," he said.

Sources said that more than 3 million foreigners came to Guangzhou in 2005 for sightseeing, family visits, studies, official and nongovernmental visits, or business, and more than 20,000 applied for permits to stay longer. The number of foreigners who apply for such permits is growing at a rate of 10 percent annually.

But some foreigners have been labelled as troublemakers.

Taxi driver Pan Jianjun said he was wary of picking up foreigners.

"On many occasions, I picked them up and took them to their destinations, but ended up with insufficient payment or even no payment at all," he said.

"They said something that I could not understand, shrugged their shoulders, mocked me and just went away."

Editor: Yan