GUANGZHOU: Local legislators have called for a coordinated response to the growing number of crimes committed by foreigners in the metropolis.

A proposal by 13 legislators has called for the establishment of a database to closer track the activities of foreign people living or doing business in the city.

"The coordinated management scheme and information sharing database should involve all related governmental organizations, including departments of foreign affairs, public security, health, labor and social security, industry and commercial and civil affairs, as they used to deal with affairs of foreigners separately," Yan Xiangrong, a deputy to the Guangdong Provincial People's Congress, told China Daily.

Yan indicated that the proposal was drawn up based on recent findings that the number of illegal activities by foreigners had risen in recent years.

"We noticed that illegal activities by foreigners had increased by about 40 per- cent from 2001 to 2005," Yan said.

Guangdong, a province that has led the way in reform and opening up, has seen a rising number of foreigners enter the region in the last few years.

There are currently more than 40,000 foreigners registered as residents, most of whom live and do business in the capital city Guangzhou. In addition, there have been more than one million visitors in the last five years, sources with the provincial security department said.

Authorities detected 2,442 foreigners involved in illegal immigration, residence and business in the region in 2001. This number soared to 6,362 in 2005.

In Guangzhou alone, 131 foreigners were repatriated in the first half of last year as they did not have official permission to live and do business.

"Based on public security sources, we find that there have been some foreigners who have even committed crime," Yan said.

In 2006, five foreigners were arrested at Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport on smuggling charges. In one case, an Iranian national was caught trying to smuggle 7,000 grams of the drug 'ice' out of China in his luggage.

"Foreigners have contributed greatly to the province's rapid economic development over the past years," Yan said.

"But those without legal permission to live and do business in Guangdong, and especially those who commit crimes, pose a great threat to the province's social security," he said.

"This (database) is a good idea, but the most important thing for the government to do is help foreigners learn Chinese rules and laws," said Tim Ziegler, an American businessman in Zhaoqing.

"Most foreigners are not willing to break rules and laws, but they are set up by different departments and we don't know how to obey them."

The proposal was put to the congress last week, but it is still in its early stages and there is no timetable for it to become law.

(China Daily 02/15/2007 page4)