Coronavirus quarantine waiver: Hong Kong will need weeks to process hundreds of applications, but the plan is ongoing

It may take weeks before the first fully vaccinated business travellers are allowed to travel to Hong Kong and avoid the city’s restrictive quarantine requirements, as government officials iron out the logistics of the expanded quarantine exemption scheme.

Hundreds of waiver applications by senior executives at banks, insurers, fund managers and the city’s biggest listed companies have been filed, according to people familiar with the matter. The exemptions are not on hold, one person said.

It will take time for regulators overseeing those sectors to process the applications, said a spokeswoman for Hong Kong’s Financial Services and Treasury Bureau (FSTB), which acts as the overall coordinator for the scheme.

“We are looking into the details of the applications received, and expect to take some time to process them in the light of latest local and global pandemic situations, to ensure relevant control measures are sufficient to mitigate the risk of case importation,” the FSTB spokeswoman said.

In May, Hong Kong’s government expanded the scope of a quarantine waiver programme that allowed fully vaccinated senior executives from the financial industry and 500 of the largest listed companies on the Hong Kong stock exchange to conduct business in the city upon arrival or their return, subject to certain guidelines and protocols on movement. Right now, most travellers, including fully vaccinated visitors, have to spend at least two weeks in hotel quarantine if they travel from high-risk areas such as the United States or the United Kingdom.

Bank executives had been advised to postpone trips planned for June as the government continued to formulate its policies, Bloomberg reported today, citing an unidentified person familiar with the matter. The scheme had previously been limited to travellers from mainland China, the first major global economy to enter and emerge from coronavirus lockdown.