Uber withdraws from Taiwan citing world-highest fines

Ride-hailing app Uber announced in a statement yesterday the suspension of services in Taiwan, starting from February 10, citing fines that amount to TWD1.1 billion (MOP283 million) within just one month after a new law banning unlicensed taxi services was introduced.

The island-state imposes the highest fines on unlicensed taxis in the world, according to Uber. The TWD1.1 billion is the recorded total of fines imposed only in the period after the legislation was introduced on January 6.

The company threatened to close down its operations in Macau last year, also on the basis of fines, in this case exceeding MOP10 million. However the decision was reversed just a few weeks later, due to an “unprecedented amount of support” which led the organization to instead continue lobbying for legislation in the MSAR.

In Taiwan, Uber has also said that the suspension has been enacted with the hope of “restarting dialogue” with the government to “innovate the transport technology” in the country, according to the Straits Times.

They also said that Taipei’s decision last month to ban unlicensed taxi services represented a move “away from embracing innovation and 21st century trends in transportation.”

However, the organization behind the ride-hailing app has fared no better in its “dialogue” with the MSAR government.

The Macau division’s general manager Trasy Lou Walsh informed the press last month that there has been no “concrete update” in the company’s attempt to have its service legalized.

Uber launched its service in Taiwan in 2013. Since then, some one million customers have downloaded the Uber app, served by 10,000 active drivers who have racked up around 15 million trips, the company claimed in the statement.

Although the service was launched in Macau only in late 2015, Uber Macau claims to have as many as 3,000 drivers in the city, 30 percent of the number in Taiwan even though the population of the MSAR is over 35 times smaller. DB