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Following is a question by the Hon James Tien, and a written reply by the Acting Secretary for Transport, Mr Kevin Ho, in the Legislative Council today (Wednesday):
Question:
Regarding the "Closed Road Permits for Boundary Crossing Vehicles" issued by the Immigration Department, will the Government inform this Council:
(a) of the respective numbers of applications for the above Permits received and approved by the authorities in the past five years;
(b) of the average and the longest time taken for vetting and approving the above applications, and of the reasons for the relatively longer time taken for some of the applications; and
(c) of the measures in place to expedite the procedure for vetting and approving such applications?
Reply:
Madam President,
(a) The number of applications for Closed Road Permits received and approved in the past five years were:
Applications Applications
Year Received Approved
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1993 1,680 1,680
1994 1,821 1,821
1995 1,992 1,983
1996 3,260 3,255
1997 4,386 4,326
(b) In the last five years, processing of applications for Closed Road Permits took on average four to six weeks to complete. The longest waiting time in the last five years for such applications was nine months.
(c) Since February 1997, there is a standing agreement between Hong Kong and the Guangdong authorities that the number of new quotas for cross boundary private cars should be set at 55 per month. This quota arrangement is needed to ensure that cross boundary private cars grow at a measured pace so that the boundary crossing facilities will not be overloaded and congestion will not reach an unacceptable level in the road network in the vicinity of the boundary crossings.
Applications for Closed Road Permits will not be processed by the Immigration Department unless accompanied by approval documents issued by the Guangdong authorities. When the number of applications supported by approval documents received in Hong Kong exceeds the monthly agreed quota of 55, the excess cases will be put on the waiting list. Hence, if the issue of approval documents does not exceed the agreed quota, the waiting time will be shortened. We will continue to discuss with the Guangdong authorities on ways to smoothen the administration of the Closed Road Permit issuing process.
End/ Wednesday, November 11, 1998
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