(Yicai Global) Feb. 6 -- The Shenzhen-Hong Kong border has fully re-opened after being closed for nearly three years due to the pandemic, with mainland-Hong Kong group tours also resuming.

Today marked the first day of full normal travel between the Chinese mainland and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region via the land border.

Early clearance arrangements for border exit and entry via the land ports of Guangdong province, Hong Kong and Macao are no longer needed, following the scrapping of quotas for people crossing the border and the restart of mainland-Hong Kong group tours.

The three land ports that reopened today included Huanggang and Luohu. Previously, Shenzhen Bay and three other ports had reopened.

Passenger and freight customs clearance has fully returned to normal at Huanggang, the largest comprehensive passenger-freight land checkpoint in China and the only port with 24-hour customs clearance between Shenzhen and Hong Kong, sources at the site told Yicai Global today.

As a pivot connecting Shenzhen and Hong Kong, Luohu was the Shenzhen-Hong Kong land checkpoint with the largest passenger flow for a long time before Covid-19. Luohu’s passenger volume averaged 230,000 people a day in the first half of 2019.

With Luohu reopening, Hong Kong’s Mass Transit Railway expects the East Rail Line, which takes passengers to Shenzhen, to return to pre-pandemic levels.

The border reopening will first lead to a fast recovery of the tourism and consumer sectors, Wilson Pang, co-lead of KPMG’s Global Portfolio Solutions Group, told Yicai Global, adding that the normal movement of people will also drive the integrated development of industries in the Greater Bay Area development zone.

Editor: Peter Thomas