The Task Force on Supplies from the Mainland led by the Transport and Logistics Bureau (TLB) has been working closely with the Guangdong Provincial Government and the Shenzhen Municipal People's Government to explore various means to stabilise the supply of goods from the Mainland to Hong Kong.
A spokesperson for the TLB said that the "Sea Express" water transportation service from the Mainland to Hong Kong has been fully launched and its capacity is rising to increase the supplies of fresh food, other daily necessities and manufacturing materials. The current supply of fresh food from the Mainland is stable.
The spokesperson said today (December 12) that Shenzhen operated 159 cargo vessel trips and transported around 16 730 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) of cross-boundary supplies by water from December 9 to yesterday (December 11), equivalent to about 78 680 tonnes of goods, of which around 70 TEUs (about 640 tonnes) were fresh food and around 16 660 TEUs (about 78 040 tonnes) were non-fresh food, according to information from the Mainland authorities.
Since the launch of services from the three ports in Shenzhen since February 18 to yesterday, a total of around 1 363 390 TEUs of cross-boundary supplies have been transported, equivalent to about 6 471 250 tonnes of goods, of which around 3 170 TEUs (about 26 870 tonnes) were fresh food and around 1 360 220 TEUs (about 6 444 380 tonnes) were non-fresh food.
Meanwhile, to avoid a spillover of the epidemic, the Transport Department (TD) arranges for dedicated staff to conduct rapid nucleic acid tests, using nasopharyngeal swabs for specimen collection, for cross-boundary goods vehicle drivers at various land boundary control points. Only drivers with a negative result are allowed to enter the Mainland. A total of 9 684 rapid nucleic acid tests were conducted for the period from December 9 to yesterday, among which 19 cases that tested preliminarily positive or indeterminate were found. The TD has passed the cases to the Department of Health for follow-up.
The TLB will closely monitor the situation and co-operate with the Mainland authorities to facilitate and implement various measures to ensure both smooth cross-boundary land transport and a stable goods supply to Hong Kong, while reducing the risk of epidemic transmission in both the Mainland and Hong Kong.
Ends/Monday, December 12, 2022
Issued at HKT 18:00