Shenzhen will recruit 1,200 police next year to ease the shortage of public security forces, a police official said Tuesday.

Yu Xinguo, vice director general of the municipal public security bureau, said in a Shenzhen Radio Station call-in program that the existing police numbers of more than 17,000 could not meet the demand, while Shanghai, Guangzhou and Beijing were in a better situation. Shenzhen should have about 25,000 police, he said.

The municipal government was trying to solve the problem and had recruited 3,000 police this year, he said.

Yu apologized to a newsstand operator who said his stand in Taibai Road had been robbed three times and the robbers had never been caught.

In response to mobile message complaints about gangs regularly robbing bus passengers from Fuyong to Kengzi, he said the bus public security sub-bureau would dispatch officers to crack down on thieves on buses.

(Shenzhen Daily September 23, 2004)