More than 30,000 foreigners have been found to be living or working illegally in Guangdong Province in the past five years, according to official statistics.

Members of the municipal political consultative committee and deputies to the municipal people's congress are calling on local authorities to tackle the problem.

They have raised fears over social problems related to foreigners staying illegally, particularly in the province's capital Guangzhou.

During the ongoing six-day political consultative conference, which opened on Tuesday, the municipal committee of Jiusan Society proposed that the municipal government of Guangzhou should set up a joint department in charge of the management of foreigners.

The society, one of the non-Communist parties in China, said grassroots administrative enforcement officers should be better trained in terms of language skills and cultural differences to better communicate with foreigners.

And municipal authorities should also endeavor to make China's laws and regulations better known among foreigners when they arrive in the city, it said.

"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 seems to be growing," Mei Jiefu, a member of the society, told China Daily.

"Some of them are involved in such things as robbery, racketeering, assaults, drug trafficking, gambling and the sex trade," he said.

"Ineffective management of foreigners will mean hidden social dangers."

Mei said that the good management of foreigners was also necessary to nip any potential terrorism attempts in the bud.

The proposal of the municipal Jiusan Society has been echoed in the motions of deputies to the municipal people's congress.

He Zhihong, one of the deputies, said that the municipal 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 by law.

He added 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 foreign 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 Middle East, Southeast Asia and Africa.

A chef with a Southeast Asian-style restaurant in Guangzhou, who identified himself with the name of Ahmed, said he knew some foreigners, who entered the city as tourists, with no official permits to stay, and make a living 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 some 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, visiting relatives, studying, official and non-governmental visits, or business, and more than 20,000 applied for longer stay permits.

Foreigners who apply for longer stay permits have been growing at a rate of 10 percent annually.

But some foreigners have been labeled 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 which I could not understand, shrugged their shoulders, mocked me and just went away."

(China Daily March 24, 2006)