Taxi firms must find billions of dong for paint jobs, because the Transport Ministry says all their taxis must be the same color, according to a report in Tien Phong.

Government Decree No. 91 and Transport Ministry Circular No.14, effective August 8, stipulate that taxi firms can register only one colour. The decision has shocked taxi firms with multi-hued fleets, because they’ll have to spend a lot to re-paint the vehicles.

Taxi firms typically have registered different colours for vehicles that provide different kinds of transport services. To comply with the new decree, they will have to have thousands cars re-painted and re-registered with the transport police. Industry sources call it government harassment.

The customer will be disadvantaged, they argue. If taxi firms provide many kinds of services with different quality and fees, but they have only one colour for cars, it will be difficult for clients to differentiate among services.

Apparently the Government instruction is intended to deter small firms from imitating larger and more prestigious taxi firms. Industry sources aren’t sure how a one-color rule will solve that. Though firms are required to choose a unique colour for their cars, there’s no requirement that different taxi firms must have different colours.

Nguyen Manh Hung, Chairman of the Automobile Transportation Association, says there are about 30,000 taxis nationwide. There are 40 taxi companies in HCM City and 100 in Hanoi. A lot of dong are at stake if the Government sticks to its position.

Chairman Do Quoc Binh of the Hanoi Taxi Transport Association, says it will cost ten million dong to repaint a taxi. Hanoi has 14,000 taxis. Supposing that each taxi firm now has vehicles of two different colours, then 7000 cars must be re-painted. Total cost: 70 billion dong ($3.7 million).

Binh says taxi firms in Hanoi are still hopeful that the Transport Ministry will reconsider.

Explaining the decision, a retired Roads Administration official said that till now, all a would be taxi operator had to do was comply with regulations on logos and direction indicator lights. With no regulation on paint color, there were hardly any barriers to entry into the taxi business, and many problems arose.

The retired official says the decision on requiring taxi firms each to use a single color aims to defend the interest of taxi users and encourage authentic taxi firms which want to develop their brands. Thanh stressed that the same regulation is being applied in some other countries.

Nguyen Van Quyen, Deputy Head of the Roads Administration, said his agency is discussing the implementation of the new rule with the Transport Department. (Both are units of the Transport Ministry.