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 (August 16) that Shenzhen operated 40 cargo vessel trips and transported around 4 550 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) of cross-boundary supplies by water yesterday (August 15), equivalent to about 15 500 tonnes of goods, of which around 10 TEUs (about 10 tonnes) were fresh food and around 4 540 TEUs (about 15 490 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 817 990 TEUs of cross-boundary supplies have been transported, equivalent to about 3 944 670 tonnes of goods, of which around 2 250 TEUs (about 19 080 tonnes) were fresh food and around 815 740 TEUs (about 3 925 590 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 3 225 rapid nucleic acid tests were conducted yesterday, among which 13 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.
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