Last coronavirus restriction on travel between Hong Kong and mainland China dropped
- Travellers from both sides of the border welcome the move and predict it will cut queues and make process easier
- Politician predicts the change in policy could help ‘facilitate the flow of people between Hong Kong and mainland’
Travellers between Hong Kong and mainland China will no longer be required to fill in a health declaration form after the transport industry was told that the last Covid-19 restriction measure would be dropped on Wednesday.
A Post reporter who crossed the border at the West Kowloon high-speed railway station on Sunday afternoon did not have to fill in the online health declaration to get a QR code – often referred to as the “black code” – to continue on to the mainland.
The code scanners at the control point were turned off and the monitors used as part of the scanning process were blacked out. Officials just waved the reporter through.
Coco Yung, a Hong Kong resident and housewife in her thirties, said she made frequent trips between the city and the mainland and the axing of scanning requirements had made travel easier because she had had to queue for five to 10 minutes with her children.
“Now the pandemic is over, it is no longer necessary to do whatever health declaration,” she said.
She added that she thought the restrictions should all have been cancelled after the border reopened in February.
Pro-establishment politicians, who have called for months for the health declaration process to be axed, welcomed the move, as travellers no longer need to spend time filling in an online form to generate the QR code, which had created long queues.
One-day traveller Sin Ong, 22, from Shenzhen, said the mainland police made the announcement that no QR code was required to pass checkpoints.
“It is much more convenient than before, I just walk straight ahead without queuing,” she said.
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Eternal East Bus, which operates cross-boundary coach services, on Saturday posted on Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu that the measure would be lifted from midnight on November 1.
City media also reported that there were no checks at Shenzhen Bay control point and mainland customs officers at some of border crossings told reporters that there would be an announcement of the cancellation of the “black code” on November 1.
The health declaration rule was imposed in January 2020 and applied to everyone who entered or left the mainland.
The bus company also quoted Chinese customs officials, who said that travellers would only be required to declare if they felt unwell to customs officials at control points.
The health declaration system was set up by the mainland’s customs department in the early days of the pandemic, after authorities adopted a zero-tolerance approach to control the spread of infection.
A notice published by Chinese customs in January 2020 said the black code system was designed to “further improve Covid-19 control at ports and prevent the spread of the pandemic through ports”.
Starry Lee Wai-king, Hong Kong’s sole delegate to the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, China’s top legislative body, who was among those who wanted the requirement dropped, said in June that she would discuss the health declaration restriction during a trip to Beijing.
Lawmaker Bill Tang Ka-piu welcomed the simplification of the border-crossing process.
“For a good part of the year, Hongkongers have been frequenting the mainland for various reasons, so this would definitely bring convenience,” Tang said.
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He added the need for a health declaration was an extra hurdle in border clearance procedures.
“For the elderly who are not well-versed in technology, or might not even have a smartphone, this is great news,” Tang said. “It could help facilitate the flow of people between Hong Kong and the mainland.”
The Chinese authorities last month simplified the health declaration process by reducing the number of pieces of information required from 11 to nine for cross-border travel between Hong Kong and Macau and the mainland.
The latest immigration figures showed that more than 270,000 Hongkongers headed north through land checkpoints on Saturday, over double the number of those from the mainland who visited the city.
But Kevin Yeung Yun-hung, the tourism minister, dismissed suggestions that the difference was a result of mainlanders losing interest in the city and insisted the numbers were “normal”.
“For years, the figures for Hongkongers visiting the mainland have always been higher than that of mainland visitors to Hong Kong,” he said.
