HONG KONG RECEIVES 10,000 REQUESTS FOR DOCUMENT NEEDED TO OBTAIN NEW MAINLAND TRAVEL PERMIT

Hong Kong immigration authorities have received about 10,000 applications for a special certificate that permanent residents with foreign passports need when applying for a new multi-entry mainland China travel permit.

The department said on Thursday that it had allocated additional staff to work overtime to help ensure it could issue residents with the “Notice of Application for Access to Information” within 10 days.

The document is one of the materials needed to obtain the travel permit that opened for application at centres operated by China Travel Service (Hong Kong) on Wednesday.

Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team.

About 10,000 requests for the document had been made as of Tuesday, according to the Immigration Department.

Announced on July 1, the new permit allows non-Chinese permanent residents of Hong Kong and Macau to visit the mainland for short-term purposes such as investment, family trips, tourism, business, seminars and exchanges multiple times over a period of up to five years.

Permit holders can stay for up to 90 days on each trip and enjoy self-service clearance at border crossings once they have their fingerprints taken at a port of entry.

As of June, there were about 270,000 non-Chinese Hong Kong permanent residents.

The notice of application for access to information proves permanent residency status and nationality information. It is valid for six months.

Candidates must also fill out an application form for the permit and include a photo of themselves taken within the past six months.

Applicants are required to present their Hong Kong permanent resident identity card, a passport valid for at least the next six months and a nationality certificate.

More from South China Morning Post:

For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2024.

2024-07-11T04:32:19Z dg43tfdfdgfd