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Kahon Chan

Oscar Liu

Hong Kong’s newest overland link to mainland China has already attracted curious residents a day before it opens to the public.
Heung Yuen Wai in the New Territories, used by trucks only since 2020, will now handle passenger traffic as well from Monday.
The checkpoint will begin operations the same day all border crossings are expected to reopen after nearly all remaining mainland travel restrictions were lifted.
The HK$33.7 billion crossing is the seventh land-based control point on the border between Hong Kong and Shenzhen, and adds to the city’s 14 existing sea, air and land routes to the mainland.

Lo Wu and Lok Ma Chau land crossings will also reopen on Monday, with the latter bringing back round-the-clock travel between Hong Kong and Shenzhen after midnight.
The Sha Tau Kok crossing, limited to cargo transport, will open from 7am to 10pm.
Lim Kian-sang, 69, and his friend got off a bus outside the new crossing on Sunday and focused a pair of binoculars on a block of flats building across the Shenzhen border from the city.
“Can you see her? Let me try. Let me see my wife first,” Lim said and grabbed the binoculars from his friend as he tried to take a look at his family’s Shenzhen flat, part of a complex linked to the new border by a footbridge.
The Malaysian supermarket goods trader has been living in Hong Kong with his younger son, a pupil at a secondary school in Sheung Shui, and his wife and elder son live in a duplex flat in the Liantang district of Shenzhen.
Lim, who has returned to the mainland only three times recently because of Covid-19 travel restrictions, has since taken advantage of the return of quarantine-free travel in January and spent Lunar New Year with his family across the border.
“Later, I can travel to my Shenzhen home just for lunch and return to my Sheung Shui home in the afternoon,” he said.
Lim was among a small group of city dwellers who arrived at a bus terminal outside a village in Heung Yuen Wai to examine the new crossing.
Hong Kong to end travel curbs at mainland China border on Monday
The building remains largely off-limits to the public, but people could still go through a tunnel to check out the public transport interchange on the ground floor.
Villagers across the street were also putting up signs to advertise an open-air car park.
Transport minister Lam Sai-hung has promoted the Heung Yuen Wai border crossing as the first that city travellers can reach on foot.
Civil servant Wayne Lam, 50, agreed it would make a difference for enthusiastic cyclists like him, in addition to the savings on train tickets.
“The journey will feel more like a whole,” Lam said. “At least we can just push the bike without having to fold it or take off the wheels in order to get on a train.”
Lam regularly ventured on to the trails of Guangdong with his friends about once a month before the border closure.
He said he expected to use Heung Yuen Wai for future trips to Shenzhen’s Dameisha area and Huizhou, which are both northeast of the city.
With direct expressway access on the Shenzhen side, the Heung Yuen Wai checkpoint was designed to save travel time for cross-border trucks and coaches travelling to and from the manufacturing hub of Huizhou and other parts of eastern Guangdong.
‘3 more Hong Kong-mainland crossings to reopen; quotas, Covid tests to be axed’
But Phoebe Wang, chief operating officer of cross-border bus operator Sinoway (China) said, while her company had secured a quota for the Heung Yuen Wai crossing, new services were on hold because of a continued driver shortage.
Pupils at Hong Kong schools who live on the mainland will start to return to classrooms in the city on Wednesday, beginning with secondary schools.
But it remained unclear whether mainland residents visiting Hong Kong could begin to obtain electronic visas using self-service machines from Monday.
The Post reported last month that some mainland tourists had chosen Macau instead of Hong Kong because they could not yet obtain visas from self-service machines and had difficulty securing service centre appointments to apply for the travel documents.
Immigration Department statistics showed 323,678 mainland visitors had entered Hong Kong through all checkpoints in the four weeks since quarantine-free travel with a numbers limit between Hong Kong and the mainland started on January 8.
A shopkeeper at the Wui Chun Dispensaries in border town Sheung Shui on Sunday, who asked not to be named, said mainland visitors were few at the store and most shoppers were local residents buying medicines before they headed to the mainland.
Hong Kong’s Transport Department appealed to people who planned to cross the border to familiarise themselves with the transport options available, in particular for the 24-hour Lok Ma Chau.
The department’s Emergency Transport Coordination Centre said it would raise its operational readiness to the highest level from Monday and liaise with transport operators and the authorities to increase public transport services if needed.
Police said the force would deploy enough manpower to cover the border reopening and coordinate with mainland authorities on contingency plans.
The Immigration Department said it had earmarked enough personnel and had also drawn up contingency plans. It added it had carried out large-scale drills at control points to test the readiness of frontline staff.


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Hong Kong’s newest border crossing to mainland China to open to passenger traffic from Monday

Lim Kian-sang (with binoculars) , 69, travelled with a friend to the border crossing at Heung Yuen Wai, which will open to the public on Monday, to try and spot his wife’s flat just inside mainland China. Photo: Kahon Chan

The Heung Yuen Wai checkpoint is open to passenger traffic for the first time from Monday. Photo: Dickson Lee

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Travellers arrive in Hong Kong from mainland China at the Shenzhen Bay checkpoint. Photo: Jelly Tse

Hong Kong’s leaders address the press on Friday on full border reopening. Photo: Jelly Tse

The quarantine centre at Penny’s Bay. Photo: Sam Tsang

Cross-border students in Sheung Shui. Photo: Sam Tsang

Hong Kong has not seen a surge in Covid infections after reopening borders with the mainland. Photo: Yik Yeung-man

Cross-border travellers in Shenzhen. Photo: Edmond So

School buses in Chai Wan are being washed to get ready for services. Photo: May Tse

Mainland tour groups visit Grand Waterfront Plaza in Kowloon City in 2018. Photo: Nora Tam

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News

Hong Kong

Transport

Heung Yuen Wai crossing, used by trucks only since 2020, will start operations as all border checkpoints resume service
Curious sightseers visit the New Territories checkpoint to check it out a day before it opens up


Heung Yuen Wai crossing, used by trucks only since 2020, will start operations as all border checkpoints resume service.


Hong Kong’s newest border crossing to mainland China to open to passenger traffic from Monday

Heung Yuen Wai crossing, used by trucks only since 2020, will start operations as all border checkpoints resume service Curious sightseers visit the New Territories checkpoint to check it out a day before it opens up

Heung Yuen Wai crossing, used by trucks only since 2020, will start operations as all border checkpoints resume service

Curious sightseers visit the New Territories checkpoint to check it out a day before it opens up