Hong Kong Island down to single travel documents office as Immigration Department headquarters moves to Tseung Kwan O in the New Territories
People on Hong Kong Island will have only one office that issues passports and other travel documents from next month after the government moves the service from its Wan Chai office to a new one in Tseung Kwan O.
The change, part of a plan to transfer the Immigration Department’s headquarters from Wan Chai to Tseung Kwan O, will leave the Travel Documents Issuing Office in Central’s Harbour Building as the sole travel documents issuer on the island.
The other passport issuing centres, which also deal with identity documents for visas and re-entry permits, are in East Kowloon, West Kowloon, Sha Tin, Ho Tan, Tuen Mun and Yuen Long.
The department said that more automatic machines for travel document applications and collection would be added to the Tseung Kwan O and Central offices to cope with an expected rise in demand.
Kung Kwok-leung, an assistant principal immigration officer for documents, added about 11,000 passports and other travel documents already applied for through the Wan Chai office would have to be collected from the Central and Tseung Kwan O offices.
“We expect that rising demand will be logged in both the Central and Tseung Kwan O offices,” he said. “We will closely monitor and review the service at the two venues to decide whether we need additional personnel there.”
The department will move its headquarters from the Immigration Tower to Tseung Kwan O on June 11.
The Travel Documents and Nationality (Application) and the Travel Documents (Issue) sections, at present on the Immigration Tower’s fourth floor, will move to the new office on the same day.
The Central office will have 10 machines in service by June 11, eight more than before, and the Tseung Kwan O office will have 20 machines the public can use to apply for and collect documents.
The new immigration building in Tseung Kwan O will also take over from the Kwun Tong Registration of Persons Office, which will close on June 8.
Wong Ka-yee, an assistant principal immigration officer, said that as of May 7 there were 3,800 issued identity cards available for collection at the Kwun Tong office.
People who have applied for Hong Kong identity cards through the Kwun Tong office can visit a temporary pickup point next to the office for collection.
The temporary facility, which opened in November to help reduce months-long waiting times for replacement ID cards, is expected to remain open until the third quarter of next year.
