The Transport and Housing Bureau said today (January 19) that, regarding the support to be provided to the cross-boundary passenger transport trade under the fifth round of the Anti-epidemic Fund, the Transport Department (TD) and the Marine Department (MD) will respectively issue notification letters to each of the eligible registered owners of cross-boundary coaches (CBCs) and cross-boundary hire cars (CBHCs) and the eligible cross-boundary ferry (CBF) operators on the details of the relevant subsidies.
The Government has announced that further financial support will be provided to the cross-boundary passenger transport trade under the fifth round of the Anti-epidemic Fund as follows:
- CBCs: To provide a one-off non-accountable subsidy of $30,000 per vehicle to the registered owner of each licensed CBC (including port shuttle buses). About 1 500 CBCs are expected to benefit;
- CBHCs: To provide a one-off non-accountable subsidy of $30,000 per vehicle to the registered owner of each licensed CBHC. About 600 CBHCs are expected to benefit; and
- CBFs: To provide a one-off non-accountable subsidy of $500,000 per ferry to the operator of each eligible CBF. About 80 CBFs are expected to benefit.
The eligibility criteria for providing a one-off non-accountable subsidy for CBCs and CBHCs are:
- the registered owners must have held a valid vehicle licence for CBCs or CBHCs as at January 14, 2022;
- the registered owners who did not hold a valid vehicle licence for CBCs or a valid hire car permit for CBHCs as at January 14, 2022, are also eligible provided that the vehicle licence/hire car permit has been successfully renewed (by the same registered owners) on or before January 13, 2023; or
- the owners who did not hold a valid vehicle licence for CBCs as at January 14, 2022, but had obtained the approval-in-principle letter issued by the TD on or before January 14, 2022, to replace a scrapped CBC with a non-franchised public bus are also eligible provided that the same owner has successfully obtained the valid vehicle licence and the International Passenger Service (Cross Boundary Service) endorsement issued by the TD for the replacement non-franchised public bus on or before January 13, 2023, and that the replacement CBC had not received any one-off subsidy to the cross-boundary passenger transport trade under the Anti-epidemic Fund.
​The eligibility criteria for providing a one-off non-accountable subsidy for CBFs are:
- successfully granted a subsidy in the further financial support measure provided to the cross-boundary passenger transport trade under the Anti-epidemic Fund in August 2021; and
- still held a valid Certificate of Registry/Certificate of Ships Nationality as at January 14, 2022.
For enquiries, please contact the TD by email at oneoffsubsidy@td.gov.hk or by phone at 3842 5849 (for CBCs and CBHCs), or contact the MD by email at yhchan@mardep.gov.hk or by phone at 2547 1312 (for CBFs).
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