Most of Hong Kong's hotel rooms had been booked out for the May Day holidays, Hong Kong's Financial Secretary Henry Tang said Wednesday.

Some hotels had increased their rates by 5 to 15 percent, the Shenzhen Special Zone Daily quoted the financial secretary as saying. He said nearly 440,000 mainlanders were expected to visit Hong Kong during the holidays.

The golden week would bring more than HK$2 billion (US$256 million) to Hong Kong with a 20 to 30 percent rise in retail sales, Xinhua News Agency predicted.

Tourist arrivals in Hong Kong and Macao from the Chinese mainland in the first quarter reached 827,000, up 47 percent year-on-year, statistics released by the Ministry of Public Security on Wednesday show.

(Shenzhen Daily April 30, 2004)