Seven of the fourteen points of passage to Macao and China are now open. After three years of restrictions due to the pandemic, trips could experience a peak at the time of the New Year on January 22.
by Florence de Changy (Hongkong, Correspondence)
Sunday January 8 in the morning, in Lok Ma Chau, one of the main border posts between the special administrative region of Hong Kong and the megalopolis of southern China, Shenzhen, the suitcases cross on the quay of RER of the line is, in a moist winter greyness. Those who come out of the train and go to China are heavy and bulging. Those who arrive from China, fewer and lighter, go straight to the city’s shopping centers.
The speakers broadcast, in Cantonese (the local language), in Mandarin (the official Chinese language), and in English, the same message to the attention of travelers: “Today start cross-border passages. Travelers must have carried out a PCR test in the forty-eight hours preceding the passage of the border and must have registered online for the time of their customs pass … “
By virtue of the end of zero covid policy decided in December 2022 by the Beijing authorities and the lifting of border restrictions, seven of the fourteen crossing points to Macao and China are now open. And it is by Lok Ma Chau that around 70 % of the expected traffic should spend. For the time being, the atmosphere is quiet, almost calm, very far from the noisy crowd and the daily effervescence of the same place before the pandemic. Few effusions of joy or excitement too showy, even among the small groups of Chinese students, on their 31, who nevertheless say “very happy” in the prospect of this long -awaited return to their family.
Daily quota
During the COVID years, only three passages remained open. And the conditions of travel in China (with in particular long quarantines and the permanent risk of being confined) had become unacceptable. In front of the automatic barriers that lead to customs, a Chinese family separates. Only the father leaves today, to review the family and to manage his business, but the mother and the two girls do not yet want to “take the risk”.
Fearing a rush to China after these years of isolation for the hundreds of thousands of continental Chinese who live in Hong Kong, the government had nevertheless deemed necessary to impose a daily quota of 60,000 people in each direction (50 including 50 000 for the “on foot” and 10,000 for arrivals by plane, ferry or by Co). Finally, Sunday, only 45,000 passages were recorded, with 33,000 people leaving in China and 12,000 coming to Hong Kong. Admittedly, it is much more than the approximately 2,000 or 3,000 daily passages authorized until then, but well below the 500,000 daily passages before Covid.
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