MR YIU SI-WING: President, some members of the tourism industry have relayed to me that the waiting time for visitors entering Hong Kong to go through immigration clearance at various boundary control points (BCPs) is too long. The situation is especially appalling during peak hours of inbound and outbound traffic in the morning, when the waiting time is as long as one to three hours in general. This has seriously tarnished visitors' impression about Hong Kong and is detrimental to the development of Hong Kong's tourism industry. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:

(a) of the average current waiting time for visitors entering Hong Kong to go through immigration clearance via Lo Wu, Lok Ma Chau, Lok Ma Chau Spur Line and Shenzhen Bay BCPs during the morning peak hours on the three types of days (namely weekdays, weekends and holidays), and the details of Immigration Department (ImmD)'s manpower and the average number of vacant immigration counters during such peak hours (broken down by the three types of days and the aforesaid BCPs); and

(b) whether, with its existing manpower and facilities, the ImmD can implement measures to shorten the waiting time for inbound visitors during peak hours of inbound traffic; if it can, of the targeted waiting time to be shortened; if not, the reasons for that?

SECRETARY FOR SECURITY: President, Hong Kong is a very popular international trade and tourism hub that handles voluminous passenger throughputs at various immigration control points everyday. Since 2007, the number of arriving visitors has been growing rapidly from 28.2 million to 48.62 million (an average annual growth of 14.5%), of which the number of Mainland visitors increased from 15.26 million to 34.66 million (an average annual growth of 25.4%). It is envisaged that the number of visitors will continue to rise in the coming years, with increasing pressure on the handling capacity of control points. The ImmD has all along adopted a number of mitigating measures to provide efficient immigration clearance service to the travelling public.
My replies to various parts of the question are as follows:

Control Point                Percentage of visitors 
                                     cleared within 30 minutes
-------------                         -------------------------


Lo Wu                                         99.03%


Lok Ma Chau Spur Line           95.05%


Shenzhen Bay                           97.09%

Lok Ma Chau                            97.30%

(a) In the past five years, the pledge of "clearing 95% of visitors within 30 minutes" at land BCPs was met. The compliance situation in 2012 at major land BCPs is as follows:

The ImmD does not have a breakdown of the waiting time for visitors on specific dates or times.

(b) Subject to the passenger traffic situation during different periods of time, the ImmD makes timely arrangement to ease passenger flow through flexibly deploying manpower and arranging staff to work overtime as necessary so as to put more counters in service for clearing passengers during peak hours.
At the same time, the ImmD has been streamlining its workflow and making good use of information technology to implement various immigration convenience measures, such as the extension of e-Channel service to frequent visitors, simplified clearance procedures for cross-boundary students and non-stamping immigration clearance for visitors, and so on, to improve the immigration clearance efficiency to cope with the continuous increase in passenger traffic.

Moreover, improvement works at the Lok Ma Chau and Man Kam To Control Points are expected to complete within this year. By then, a passenger hall with additional 13 e-Channels will be put into operation at the Lok Man Chau Control Point, whereas seven additional e-Channels will be installed at the Man Kam To Control Point to facilitate passenger clearance. By the end of this year, the number of e-Channels available for visitors at various control points will increase to 100. The ImmD will continue to monitor passenger traffic situation and gradually increase the number of e-Channels for use by visitors at other control points. New cross-boundary facilities being developed, including the Kai Tak Cruise Terminal, Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link, Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge and Liantang/Heung Yuen Wai Control Point, will come into operation in coming years. They will help ease the pressure of passenger traffic at current control points.

Separately, the ImmD has begun work on developing the New Immigration Control System so as to cope with the perennial growth of passenger traffic in the coming years. The new system will introduce further automation in the immigration clearance procedures, including face recognition technology and self-service departure e-Channels, and is expected to be launched in 2016. The handling capacity at control points will then be raised significantly and visitors' waiting time at different periods of time will be shortened.