The National Day “Golden Week” has produced another travel milestone on China’s southwestern frontier. According to figures released on 7 October by the Hekou Border Inspection Station, cumulative traveller throughput at Hekou land port on the China-Vietnam border reached 5.0003 million entries and exits as of 12:00 on 6 October. The volume represents a 6.12 percent year-on-year increase and an average 17 900 daily crossings. Hekou is the busiest of the eight international ports in Yunnan and the principal gateway for bilateral trade and tourism with Vietnam’s Lào Cai province. Traffic has surged since China resumed visa-free, same-day markets and reinstated the 15-day visa-exemption for Vietnamese tour groups earlier this year. Golden Week has amplified those flows as overseas Vietnamese return to visit family and Chinese holidaymakers flock south for short leisure trips. Border authorities credit the steady operations to a “smart port” upgrade completed in August that added automated gates, real-time passenger-flow sensors and a bilingual WeChat mini-program that pushes wait-time alerts. During the holiday, additional inspection counters were opened and mobile teams were deployed to direct group tourists, speeding clearance to under 10 minutes at peak periods. For multinationals moving personnel or goods through southwest China, Hekou’s expanded capacity offers a faster alternative to congested air or sea routes. Logistics companies are already bundling bonded trucking services that pair the land crossing with the Kunming-Haiphong rail corridor to shorten door-to-door times between the Greater Bay Area and northern Vietnam by up to 24 hours. Looking ahead, Yunnan’s provincial government plans to integrate Hekou into a single-window system covering customs, immigration and quarantine by 2027. Firms with frequent cross-border assignments should track these digitalisation efforts and ensure travellers enrol for e-channel access in advance.
Source: Guandian
