A woman tries to hail a taxi on First Avenue Oct. 31, 2012 in New York. (AFP Photo/Stan Honda)

NEW YORK, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- A new law has gone into effect over the weekend that no longer requires New York City cab drivers to be proficient in English, a move that was seen to combat the challenges from mobile cab-hailing services like Uber and Lyft.

The new law was signed by mayor Bill de Blasio in April and went into effect on Friday, scraping the mandatory English examination for taxi drivers. Now the test for cab drivers to get a license will be available in several different languages.

According to the New York Times, the bill was passed in an effort to seek parity with app-based ride services such as Uber, which don't require drivers to pass an English test.

Foreign-born drivers had long been dominating the city's taxi market. As of 2016, only 4 percent of New York City's yellow cab drivers were born in the U.S., comparing with 24 percent in Bangladesh and 10 percent in Pakistan, according to the city's Taxi and Limousine Commission.