No tolerance for tension, says HK chief as he confirms visitor curbs
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TENSION between Hong Kong and visitors from China’s mainland will not be tolerated, the financial hub’s leader said yesterday as he confirmed a cap on the number of trips mainlanders can make to the southern Chinese city.
An influx of millions of Chinese mainland visitors has prompted protests by frustrated Hong Kong residents tired of seeing public transport clogged and shelves periodically cleared of daily necessities purchased for resale over the border.
Mainland authorities have stopped allowing residents from the border city of Shenzhen to make unlimited visits to the city, Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying said yesterday, restricting them to one visit per week in a bid to ease the pressure.
“Anything that increases tension between Hong Kong and mainland society is not tolerated,” Leung said.
The central government has adjusted the travel policy because “alongside the unceasing growth of mainland residents traveling to Hong Kong and growing pressure on mainland and Hong Kong immigration ports, there’s growing contradiction between visitor numbers to Hong Kong and Hong Kong tourism’s capability,” Xinhua news agency said.
However, Leung also warned against further protests targeting mainland visitors, describing them as “unruly” and “counter-productive.”
Some of the recent protests had led to clashes with police and several arrests.
The decision to restrict visitor numbers is aimed at curbing parallel trading, Leung said, in which mainlanders buy up daily necessities, such as baby formula, in Hong Kong and then resell them in China’s border towns to avoid paying tax.
“The visa arrangements become one-visit-per-week for Shenzhen residents. This is a policy suggested by the Hong Kong government and adopted by the central authorities,” Leung told reporters, confirming weekend reports.
He admitted that the move will not put an end to parallel trading, but added that the government would continue to crack down on any illegal activities.
Pro-business lawmaker Jeffrey Lam Kin-fung said plenty of small businesses may suffer. “Several thousand people may lose their jobs,” he said last night.
But a resident of Sheung Shui, one of the city’s border towns, welcomes the policy. “They (parallel traders from mainland) are always pushing their carts around. Their luggage may roll over your feet. The policy can definitely reduce such nuisance,” he told Cable TV news.
Some people on the mainland, however, branded the policy as unfair.
“One country two systems. Hong Kong people returning to the mainland should have weekly limits to meet the requirements of equal status,” was one online comment.
Another wrote: “Hong Kong (people) really are hypocrites (wanting wealth while not wanting tourists).”
Hong Kong opened up to mainland tourists in 2003 as part of a bid to revive its economy following an outbreak of the respiratory disease SARS, allowing them to visit as individual travelers rather than as part of organised tours.
Last year alone, an estimated 47 million tourists traveled from the mainland to visit Hong Kong.
About 4.6 million of the visitors made trips to Hong Kong more than once a week, according to Leung, with Shenzhen residents with multiple visit passes accounting for 30 percent of that number.
They are estimated to be responsible for a third of retail sales in Hong Kong, a city of 7.1 million people.
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