The 11-kilometer Heung Yuen Wai Road opened on May 26 linking downtown Hong Kong directly with the Heung Yuen Wai Port that is under construction and is scheduled to open alongside the Liantang Port on the Shenzhen side in September 2019.

The road will be connected to the expressway in the east of Shenzhen that links up the Liantang Port — which has just been constructed — with the eastern part of Shenzhen.

The Huanggang Port is the only port in Shenzhen that opens round the clock in downtown Shenzhen. The port will only handle personnel crossing the border, but not freight, so as to set free more land in the center of the city and resolve the traffic congestions in the blocks . The land set free is earmarked to be used as a science and technology innovation cooperation zone for Shenzhen and Hong Kong.

The proposal to construct the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area has prompted Shenzhen to work with Hong Kong to expedite the optimization and modernization of their ports and make them play a more important role in promoting the integrated development of the region.

Apart from a railway port, there are six sea ports connecting Shenzhen with Hong Kong, which are in Luohu, Wenjindu, Huanggang, Shatoujiao, Shenzhen Bay and Futian. The Liantang port, which connects the Heung Yuen Wai Port in Hong Kong, will become the seventh port in Shenzhen.

Shenzhen Mayor Chen Rugui emphasized in his interview with the media that the city will further improve the port’s services and its efficiency to facilitate the cross-border flow of people, logistics, funds and information.

Last year, 250 million travelers went through the ports of Shenzhen and crossing the border, which works out to be 690,000 persons a day on average. The city plans to make more ports like the Huanggang Port, which opens round-the-clock.

Fang Zhou, a researcher of the “one country, two systems” in Hong Kong, said the increase of people-to-people exchanges and the change in the composition of travelers, with tourists and relatives making up the majority of visitors, creates new challenges for the facilitation of customs clearance. More people will now live and work on both sides and the old ports must be transformed and upgraded accordingly.

Shenzhen is working with Hong Kong to integrate the work on inspection and quarantine, customs and other relevant departments in the ports to shorten the time it takes for visitors to pass through. Both sides are also striving to use advanced technology to link each other’s information, inspection, supervision and law enforcement regarding port procedures.

Shenzhen is also renovating the area around its ports to make sure that people will have plenty of options in shopping, accommodation, dining and other leisure activities.

Some districts in Shenzhen are also planning to extend their intercity tracks and city rails to the ports to increase the transportation capacity of the port regions.

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