Hong Kong permanent residents with foreign passports are making their first trips to mainland China using a new multi-entry five-year travel permit, while about 32,000 applicants wait in anticipation.
The first batch of successful applicants collected their new permits earlier this week, including current and former members of the city’s various foreign chambers of commerce.
The permit allows holders to spend up to 90 days for each stay on the mainland and enjoy self-service clearance at control checkpoints once they have their fingerprints taken at ports of entry.
Alfred Buchner, a former committee member of the Austrian Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong and Macau, was among those using his travel permit to visit Shenzhen on Saturday.
Wife Lenny and daughter Patricia were able to join him on the trip after securing their own permits.
The family still needed to undergo clearance at a staffed immigration counter as a one-off to complete the self-service process and verify fingerprint records taken using the e-channel registry, he said.
But Buchner said he was glad he could enjoy the perks of the fast track process without applying for visas for his wife.
As an Austrian, he was granted visa-free entry to the mainland earlier this year, he said. Buchner added that he and his family planned to stay in Shenzhen for the day to enjoy some food, shopping and sightseeing.
“The fingerprint registration was very advanced, provided very clear instructions and took only a few minutes. Including passing through the immigration counters, it took about 15 minutes,” he said.
“For business travellers, it’s always a problem to get a visa for visiting the mainland. Now with this permit, you don’t need planning. I can come whenever I like with my family.”
Earlier, Singapore Chamber of Commerce vice-chairman Basil Hwang was told he was the first permit holder to cross the Futian checkpoint into Shenzhen when he arrived on Friday.
He said the initial registration process, including fingerprinting and having his picture taken, took about 15 minutes.
Announced on July 1, the new permit allows non-Chinese nationals with permanent residency in Hong Kong and Macau to enter the mainland for various purposes such as short-term investment, visiting relatives, tourism, business, seminars and exchanges, multiple times for a period of up to five years.
Permits are issued within 20 working days when applications are successful.
Before the permit’s introduction, most of the city’s 270,000 adult non-Chinese nationals with permanent residency had to apply for separate visas to visit the mainland.
The Immigration Department said it received in July about 32,000 applications for the “Notice of Application for Access to Information”, a special certificate required to apply for the permit.
Mohan Chugani, president of the India Association Hong Kong, said he helped arrange for as many as 400 people in Hong Kong’s ethnic minority community to apply for the new permit last month.
Chugani, who is ethnically Indian and whose family has lived in the city for generations, said the permit would help the community feel accepted as part of Hong Kong society.
He said that while he had been to the mainland numerous times, many families were unable to travel regularly due to the thousands of dollars required for visas.
“For people like us who were born and raised here, to me my feeling is that finally China has recognised that we are part and parcel of Hong Kong society, and maybe part and parcel of Greater China,” he said.
Chugani added that he had mostly travelled to cities such as Guangzhou and Shenzhen in the past, but hoped to explore more of the Greater Bay Area, as well as the rest of the mainland once he was able to pick up his permit in a few weeks.
“Now that I have this new card I feel like I can travel anywhere,” he said.
Some groups have yet to apply for the new permit.
Johannes Hack, president of Hong Kong’s German Chamber of Commerce, said that while as many as two-thirds of the city’s German business community qualified for the new permit, “very few” had applied.
He said that most German permanent residents already held Apec business travel cards, which reduced the benefits of the new permit.
The Apec business travel card, valid for five years, is good for multiple visits of two to three months each to 19 participating economies, without the need to obtain a visa once pre-clearance has been granted.
“The benefit is substantially higher to those who previously needed a visa and to queue in the normal immigration line, neither of which [is] the case for Apec card holders,” he said.
But Hack added that he expected more people to apply for the permit in autumn once they returned from their summer holidays.
