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Passenger traffic at various control points during the National Day Golden Week holidays was smooth and orderly despite a substantial increase in the number of visitors from the Mainland, a spokesman for the Immigration Department said today (October 10).

From September 30 to October 7, about 287,000 Mainland visitors entered Hong Kong, an increase of 21% when compared with the same period last year.

"The National Day is a 'Golden Holiday' in the Mainland. With the implementation of the Individual Visit Scheme in July this year, residents from various Mainland cities made use of the scheme to come to Hong Kong for visits. During this period, a total of 76,152 individual visitors came to Hong Kong, representing a daily average of over 9,500. On National Day on October 1, the number of individual visitors reached a record high of 21,677. The majority of them traveled through the land-boundary checkpoints of Lo Wu and Lok Ma Chau," said the spokesman.

During the National Day holiday period, total passenger throughput at land-boundary checkpoints was about 2.77 million, an increase of 9.3% over the 2.53 million passengers recorded during the same period last year. Of these, about 1.98 million, a daily average of almost 250,000, passed through the Lowu control point.

The highest daily figure for outbound passengers at Lo Wu -- 194,000 -- was recorded on October 3. The highest daily figure for inbound passengers was 190,000, recorded on October 5. The highest daily total passenger throughput -- over 290,000 -- came on October 3.

Passenger traffic at the Lok Ma Chau checkpoint during the festive period was also very heavy, with a total passenger throughput of 620,000, a daily average of 77,000. The highest daily figure of 52,000 for outbound passengers was recorded on October 4. The highest daily number inbound passengers -- 57,000 -- came on October 5, while the highest daily total passenger throughput of 89,000 was recorded on October 4.

"To cope with the large increases, the department redeployed 335 officers from other divisions to reinforce various control points. Among these, 266 were deployed to the land boundary checkpoints. Moreover, the department formed an Emergency Response Team of 50 members, which was ready to cope with any emergencies that might arise at the control points. On National Day, 30 members of the emergency team were mobilised to reinforce the boundary checkpoints," said the spokesman.

In addition to staff reinforcement, the Immigration Department took a series of measures to enhance the handling capacity of the checkpoints. These included suspension of leave, compulsory overtime, flexible deployment of staff and the use of innovative technology such as the introduction of the "Expeditious Immigration Clearance System" to cope with the flood of passengers.

The department also adopted contingency measures to relieve congestion at the control points. On October 3, for example, the Lo Wu control point implemented the Contra-Flow Scheme to handle a drastic increase in the number of departing passengers. During the busiest hours, the number of departure counters was increased from 76 to 109, enabling us to process 23,826 passengers per hour.

What's more, the Immigration Department was in close liaison with the Shenzhen authorities during the festive period to ensure the smooth flow of passenger traffic.

"Thanks to the implementation of various contingency measures, passenger traffic during the National Day Golden Week holidays was smooth and orderly. The majority of passengers were able to clear immigration within 30 minutes," said the spokesman.

Immigration Department

End/Friday, 10 October 2003