Fwd: No of Hubei residents visiting HK

[Simon H WANG]

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: <css_e...@immd.gov.hk>
Date: Wed, Aug 12, 2020 at 5:22 PM
Subject: Re: No of Hubei residents visiting HK
To: <simo...@hkbu.edu.hk>

Our ref: ImmD RM/6-5/10/2020/410(R)


Dear Sir,

With effect from 27 January this year, except for Hong Kong residents, residents from Hubei Province and persons who have visited Hubei Province in the past 14 days are not permitted to enter Hong Kong.  Upto end of July 2020, more than 2 500 such visitors, mostly residents from Hubei Province, had been refused entry at various control points by the Immigration Department (ImmD).  

From May to June 2020, there were 9,773 Mainland visitors with an "endorsement for visiting relatives" and 14 Mainland visitors with an "endorsement for group visit" or "endorsement for individual visit".

The Hong Kong Immigration Service is committed to exercising effective immigration control and enforcing the laws.  Nonetheless, the policy on anti-epidemic measures is not under the purview of our department.  The approval of the exempted categories of persons is by the Chief Secretary for Administration and the application for exemption is to be made to various departments other than our department of which you may refer the hyperlink provided as below:

https://www.coronavirus.gov.hk/eng/599C-quarantine_exemption.html

The ImmD does not maintain other breakdown statistics that mentioned in your e-mail of 23 July 2020.

I hope you will find the above information useful.


Regards,
CHAN Hui-yu
Control Support Section
for Director of Immigration



From:        Simon H WANG <simo...@hkbu.edu.hk>
To:        "enq...@immd.gov.hk" <enq...@immd.gov.hk>, "r...@immd.gov.hk" <r...@immd.gov.hk>
Date:        23/07/2020 08:01
Subject:        No of Hubei residents visiting HK



Dear Sir/Madam
         It is highly regrettable that the government still denies the entry of Hubei residents despite the fact that no Covid-19 infection case was reported in the province since May 19
https://www.scmp.com/comment/letters/article/3091359/hong-kong-coronavirus-curbs-hubei-recovery-should-prompt-entry-ban
        Here are the questions I hope the department could answer under the Code on Access to Information

1) How many Hubei residents visited the city under a family visa (to stay no more than 6 months) in 2019?

2) How many Hubei residents visited the city under a tourist visa in 2019?

3) How many Hubei residents are currently holding a valid family visa to HK?

4) How many Hubei residents are currently holding a valid tourist visa to HK?

5) From May to June 2020, how many Mainland residents visited HK holding family and tourist visas respectively?

6) In what ways is the department involved in formulating the policy on denying entry of Hubei residents?

Thanks in advance for your information.

Yours sincerely
Simon Wang



--
Simon Wang, Ph.D.
Lecturer
Language Centre
Hong Kong Baptist University
Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong
http://lc.hkbu.edu.hk/staff_simon.php  

Writing for the Public Project
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