Migrant workers beat holiday rush on motorbikes

A worker of Sinopec Guangdong Oil Products Company offers free gas to migrant workers who are traveling home by motorbike in Foshan, Guangdong province, Jan 23, 2014. Qiu Quanlin / China Daily

About 600,000 migrant workers in Guangdong province are expected to travel home by motorbike for Spring Festival in order to beat the travel rush, sources with the Sinopec Guangdong Oil Products Company said on Thursday.

The company said most motorcycle riders are heading back to neighboring provinces and regions, including Guangxi, Guizhou, Sichuan and Hunan.

The oil company has teamed up with the Guangdong Youth Volunteers Committee to offer free gas and food packages for the first 10,000 riders.

The organizers said on Thursday, as the event was launched, that their aim was to encourage a safe and comfortable ride home for the migrant workers.

"It takes me about 10 hours to ride back my home," said Long Bing, who works for an electronic company in Foshan, a manufacturing city in Guangdong.

Long is riding a motorbike to his hometown in Guigang of the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region. His wife will be traveling back with him on the same bike.

For the past three years, the 35-year-old has used motorbikes during the Spring Festival holiday, which begins on Jan 31 this year. He said public transport is difficult as there are few shuttle buses and trains linking his hometown and Guangdong.