Authorities announced Monday that residents of China’s Shenzhen City can only visit Hong Kong once per week, effective immediately. The multiple-entry scheme for them to visit Hong Kong, implemented five years ago, has been abolished.
The new policy is expected to alleviate disturbances to residents in Hong Kong’s Northern District caused by parallel-goods traders, who visit Hong Kong to buy goods for resale in mainland China. The problems caused by these traders have intensified in the past six months, highlighting the antagonism between Hong Kong and China as well as the confidence crisis under the communist rule.
Eligible Shenzhen residents can only visit Hong Kong once a week, and therefore a maximum of 52 times per year. Any unused quota will then be forfeited.
New People’s Party legislator and National People’s Congress (NPC) representative Michael Tien Puk-sun, who has been continuously lobbying for a revision of the old scheme, described the announcement as “the coming of a late spring.”
He pointed out that residents with multiple-entry permits seldom stayed overnight in Hong Kong. It was therefore expected that the policy-tightening would only have a minor effect on retail business and the tourist industry, but it would be an effective means to slash parallel-goods trading activities.
“I have carried out a detailed survey of the customer profiles in the 40-plus shops operated by our company,” Tien said. “Those on multiple visas and those on single-entry permits both account for about half of the total.”
“Ninety-eight percent of them visit Hong Kong 15 times or less in a year,” he said. “The one-visit-per-week permits allow them to come to Hong Kong 52 times a year. I don’t see how anyone would need to come to Hong Kong more than once a week to buy jewelry and clothing.”
Responding to concerns from the tourist industry, Tien suggested that the Individual Travel Scheme should be extended to more mainland Chinese cities.
“We have not made any developments since 2007. Many residents from major cities including Qingdao, Xi'an, and Harbin can travel to Taiwan freely but not to Hong Kong,” said Tien, who claimed to have already proposed this to the central government in February before the NPC Congress.
Hong Kong Tourism Board chairman Lam Kin Ngok also said that the Individual Travel Scheme should be administered in more cities outside Guangdong Province, therefore raising the proportion of overnight visitors.
The current multiple-entry scheme was introduced in April 2009. By paying a fee of 100 yuan (US$16), Shenzhen residents could pay unlimited visits to Hong Kong in a year.
A Mainland Chinese woman packs goods into her suitcase at Sheung Shui, Northern District of Hong Kong on April 12, 2015. Epoch Times
