Reopening Border With Mainland Still Top Priority: CE

Chief Executive Carrie Lam said on Wednesday that resuming quarantine-free cross-border travel with the mainland remains a top priority of the SAR government, but admitted there isn’t a timetable yet.

The SAR government had been in talks with its mainland counterparts for months, but the Omicron outbreak forced authorities to put their plans on hold.

“We need to make sure that the fifth wave will subside as soon as possible, and then we will restore some of the basis for resumption of travel,” Lam said during her daily pandemic press briefing.

“There is a very strong economic need for this sort of facilitated travel or resumption of travel into the mainland of China. It’s also a social development need, because there are so many connections amongst the people of Hong Kong with the mainland.”

The CE also reiterated that lifting the flight ban on nine countries from April 1 is not a relaxation in border control measures.

She added that she’s aware that the number of incoming flights are limited, partly because of the government’s flight-suspension mechanism, under which authorities can stop an airline from flying to Hong Kong for two weeks if several passengers on the same flight test positive for Covid.

“I can only say that we know the problem, and we are looking at how we could resolve this without compromising our border control measures,” she said.

Responding to comments made by researchers from the University of Hong Kong that the SAR is facing a crossroad over keeping its dynamic clearance strategy or moving on to treating Covid as an endemic disease, the chief executive said it is not a question of a choice between two separate paths.

Rather, she said, the government’s objective is to curb the spread of the virus as soon as possible, so that the city could return to normal.

“We must have determination. We cannot be lying flat. We don’t take our chances at all,” she said.