Tax revenue

    THE State tax revenue in Futian District reached 30.49 billion yuan (US$4.44 billion) in 2016, an increase of 39.2 percent over the previous year, a meeting of Futian Office of State Taxation Administration said Tuesday.

    My valentine

    A TOTAL of 1,066 couples had received marriage certificates from the city’s marriage registry offices as of 6 p.m. Tuesday, which was Valentine’s Day. The Nanshan office saw the most newlywed couples at 230, and followed by Futian with 196 pairs.

    Car theft

    LONGHUA police issued an online warrant for a mechanic at a car maintenance shop, surnamed Zhu, who drove off with his customer’s Mercedes Benz to get a mortgage to pay back loan sharks.

    The car owner, surnamed Peng, got to know Zhu, 28, over car maintenance and left his 180,000-yuan car with Zhu so he could do paint and interior decoration work on it Jan. 5. However, Peng has not been able to contact Zhu since Jan. 8, and the car maintenance shop said that Zhu had quit his job in November.

    Zhu later told Peng that he had mortgaged the car to pay back loans that he owed for gambling. Peng later paid 40,000 yuan to get his car back, but again lost contact with Zhu.

    Smoking complaints

    EATERIES, clubs and Internet bars have received the most smoking complaints despite the fact that the city implemented rules to fully ban smoking indoors in January.

    The WeChat public account of Shenzhen smoking control, “深圳控烟卫士,” an exchange platform for smoking control, received 120 complaints by Feb. 9. Most of the complaints were concerning owners or operators of venues that failed to dissuade smokers.

    The Shenzhen Smoking Control Association said that the public are welcome to complain via 12345 or their WeChat account.

    Annoying experiences

    THE Shenzhen Consumer Council is collecting the most annoying and unfair experiences from consumers.

    Consumers can send their experiences to the microblog, WeChat account, or email box (szxw hxcb@sina.com) of the consumer council by March 10.

    A public online vote will be held to select the top 10 annoying shopping experiences, and the council will invite experts to provide tips to help consumers safeguard their rights. The top 10 cases will be announced around International Day for Protecting Consumers’ Rights on March 15, and followed up by an investigation by the council.

    Only-child reward

    TO continue to reward parents who abided by the only-child policy, Shenzhen revised its reward system yesterday.

    The new regulation, which will take effect March 1, will give a monthly reward of 160 yuan (US$23) to parents who gave birth to an only-child after Feb. 2, 1980, when China’s only-child policy was enacted, and before Dec. 31, 2015, when China ditched the policy. The parents should have no more than one child and should also be at least 55 years old and 60 years old for a mother and father respectively.

    Truck violations

    BAO’AN police Monday stopped a mini-truck with 246 unhandled traffic violations, including 75 in Shenzhen.

    The truck often used the roads between Shenzhen and Dongguan, and the drivers hadn’t handled any violations since its last annual inspection in November 2015.

    Police have impounded the truck for investigation.

    Birth peak

    SHENZHEN’S health authority estimates a peak in child birth of around 240,000 a year will occur this year and next year, thanks to the second-child policy.

    By the end of 2016, the city had 84 medical institutions, including 48 public institutions, that were qualified to offer baby delivery service. In 2016, 231,039 babies were born, a new record for the city.

    Tunnel machine

    A TUNNEL-BORING machine, which is used to excavate tunnels and can bore through anything from hard rock to sand, was put in place to go under the Jigong Mountain for the Metro Line 10 project yesterday.

    The 29.54-kilometer Line 10 starts at Futian Checkpoint and ends at Pinghu, covering Futian, Longhua and Longgang districts.