(Yicai Global) March 19 -- Didi Chuxing Technology Co., the world's largest ride-hailing company which is currently trying to crack the bike-sharing sector, has encountered a major setback in China's southern tech hub Shenzhen after the local transport commission ordered the company to take back bicycles it dispatched to the city's streets.

Didi's deployment violated local rules and several government departments summoned the company's executives in for discussions and to advise they had to remove the bikes from the roads, the Transport Commission of Shenzhen Municipality said in a statement.

The Beijing-based firm kicked off its bike-sharing operations, branded Qingju, on Jan. 25 in the southwestern city of Chengdu, before heading east into Guangdong, Anhui and Jiangxi provinces. It placed around 20,000 bikes in Futian, Bao'an and Longhua, all districts of Shenzhen, on March 17, even though the local transport commission had brought in rules on Aug. 23 to outlaw the deployment of new shared cycles.

The Guangzhou transport commission recently called in the sector's top players Beijing Mobike Technology Co. (Mobike) and Beijing Bikelock Technology Co. (Ofo), as well as Didi and Shanghai Junzheng Network Technology Co. (Hellobike), to remind them of the restrictions, provincial news agency Xin Kuaibao reported.