Just eleven days after opening, the rebuilt 24-hour Huanggang/Lok Ma Chau land port handled an average of 130,000 passengers per day during Hong Kong’s three-day Chung Yeung Festival break, Security Secretary Chris Tang revealed on 23 October. Ordinary weekdays are already logging about 83,000 crossings—more than double the flow at the old facility. The one-stop joint-inspection hall means travellers clear both Hong Kong and mainland Chinese immigration in a single queue. However, Tang acknowledged teething problems: waits stretched to an hour at Saturday’s lunchtime peak, partly because some passengers had not pre-registered for e-Channel and children under seven still require manual counters. Authorities plan to beef up crowd management and deploy more staff during peak festivals and November’s APEC leaders’ summit in nearby Shenzhen. For companies shuttling staff between Hong Kong and Shenzhen tech parks, the bigger port is a productivity win—especially for late-night crossings when Huanggang remains one of only two 24-hour options. Yet mobility managers should remind non-Chinese passport holders that mainland officials still require an arrival form, and that pre-registering biometric data in Hong Kong’s ‘Easy Boundary’ app can cut queue times. Transport operators are adjusting schedules too: several coach companies have added midnight departures, and ride-hail platforms report a 25 percent surge in cross-border bookings. Over the medium term, the port’s capacity could reshape housing choices for expatriates who can now commute reliably from Shenzhen flats to Hong Kong offices.
Source: RTHK
