Two Pakistani English teachers in China were yesterday ordered to leave the country before the end of this month after local police in Jiangxi Province found that their residence permits had expired, reported Xinhua News Agency.

The married couple, a 25-year-old male and a 27-year-old female, came to China with professional visas in 2003 and worked as English teachers at a college in east China's Jiangsu Province.

But before they finished their contracted term this summer and moved to work in Yuzhou Science and Technology Institute in Xinyu, east China's Jiangxi Province, they failed to extend their residence permits, staff at the Xinyu Public Security Bureau told China Daily.

Local police accessed their certificates earlier this month and found that the couple exceeded their permitted residence period by 40 days.

The bureau ordered them to leave by October 30 and fined them 5,500 yuan (US$690) in accordance with the country's regulations.

Xinyu is not the only city to have reported illegal employment of foreigners.

With the country's opening up, an increasing number of foreigners have been drawn to China's job opportunities.

South China's Guangdong Province, the region most open to market practices and foreign interchange, tracked down 6,362 foreigners without official permits in 2005, most of whom lived in Guangzhou and Shenzhen, according to statistics from the province's public security bureau.

Authorities in Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong, have recently vowed to redouble efforts to apprehend such foreigners.

Their measures include offering incentives to citizens to report foreigners without legitimate residence permits and improving management mechanisms.

In a major step towards that direction, together with the exit and entry management section of the municipal bureau, the Yuexiu Public Securities Bureau staged a massive campaign to track down illegal foreign dwellers and employees in the district, where most of such foreigners dwell, early last month.

One company was sealed up, two restaurants were fined for employing illegal foreigners, and three foreigners were fined for illegal work during the campaign, which interrogated over 200 foreigners, and examined 58 apartments rented to foreigners and companies where foreigners work.

According to Yang Weizhen, deputy director of the municipal public security bureau's Yuexiu branch, most of the illegal foreigners have ignored urgings to apply for official permits.

The Yuexiu branch has also dispatched police officers who can speak foreign languages to the streets to better communicate with and manage foreigners.

(China Daily October 25, 2006)