Planned Hong Kong tech hub may apply ‘innovative’ immigration arrangements to facilitate cross-border travel
Hong Kong Free Press
Hong Kong’s San Tin Technopole, an ambitious plan to create a huge technology hub near Hong Kong’s border with mainland China, may adopt “innovative immigration clearance arrangements” to allow people from the industry to travel between Shenzhen and Hong Kong, the Security Bureau has said.
The bureau’s comments were submitted to the Legislative Council on Monday in a document about the development of the Northern Metropolis, a major project announced in 2021 to integrate existing new towns in Yuen Long, Tin Shui Wai, Fanling and Sheung Shui and develop other rural areas near the border.
“With multiple cross-boundary land BCPs [boundary control points], the Northern Metropolis will be the most important area in Hong Kong facilitating our development and integration with Shenzhen and connection with the Greater Bay Area, ” the authority said in the paper.
The San Tin Technopole is seen as the centrepiece of the proposed Northern Metropolis, spanning 627 hectares, including some 300 hectares for tech purposes and more than 50,000 homes.
“The Security Bureau will actively explore the implementation of innovative immigration clearance arrangements to facilitate clearance for the I&T practitioners in Hong Kong and Shenzhen in the future,” the bureau said in the paper.
The bureau did not specify proposals of “innovative immigration arrangements”. HKFP has reached the bureau for a response.
A new cross-boundary railway has been planned and has finished the second stage study, according to the paper.
The railway, named the Hong Kong-Shenzhen Western Rail Link, will connect Hung Shui Kiu, a small town in the northern New Territories, and Qianhai, in Shenzhen.
The Security Bureau said it suggested adopting a “co-location arrangement” for the railway.
When the Shenzhen Bay Port opened in 2007, it became the first of the city’s border crossings to adopt co-location arrangements, whereby both mainland Chinese and Hong Kong immigration authorities share a location.
In 2017, the government announced that co-location arrangements would be implemented at West Kowloon Station. While the authorities said the move would expedite cross-boundary travel, democrats and civil society groups raised concerns that the city was effectively giving up its jurisdiction over a quarter of the new terminus, where immigration and customs procedures would be performed by mainland Chinese authorities.
Hong Kong activist “Long Hair” Leung Kwok-hung was among a group who launched a legal bid against the co-location arrangement at West Kowloon Station. The Court of Appeal upheld the constitutionality of the arrangement in June 2021.
A new clearance mode
According to the paper, the government is also mulling introducing co-location
arrangements at the redeveloped Huanggang Port and the redeveloped Sha Tau Kok Control Point.
The two cross-border points will adopt a new clearance mode called “collaborative inspection and joint clearance.” The government said the new mode would see “clearance channels/counters for both outbound and inbound visitors… set up side by side at the boundary line of the two territories”, ensuring visitors would only need to queue up and have their documents inspected once to cross the border.
The redevelopment of Huanggang Port is scheduled for completion by the end of 2025, while the government is is working on an engineering feasibility study for Sha Tau Kok Control Point.
The Security Bureau paper will be discussed by lawmakers on July 21.
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