Posted on 12/09/2023 5:37:07 AM PST by FarCenter
SHENZHEN, China -- Residents of Hong Kong are flocking to the neighboring mainland city of Shenzhen to shop, dine and spend their weekends, posing a new challenge for their own city's economic recovery.
Hong Kongers heading north to Shenzhen outnumber mainland tourists heading in the other direction after China relaxed its border controls following three years of tight pandemic restrictions. The imbalance is straining Hong Kong's small and midsize businesses -- a problem the city's government appears to have recognized.
It took 32-year-old Annie Chan less than an hour to get across the border one recent weekend. Once there, she spent most of her time walking around the shopping malls, getting a massage and eating in more "budget friendly leisure places."
"There are just so many more food options," she said. "My Hong Kong dollar goes a lot further than if I stayed home."
Besides the weaker yuan -- which is down 6% to the U.S. dollar this year amid a slowing Chinese economy, whereas the Hong Kong dollar is pegged to the strong greenback -- Shenzhen is actively courting such spenders. The city is offering online consumption vouchers along with kiosks to make currency exchanges a snap. It has also become much easier to link Chinese online services WeChat and AliPay with offshore bank accounts. And Hong Kongers can easily cross with their "home return permits."
Since cross-border movement resumed in January 2023, Hong Kong residents have made more than 48 million trips to Shenzhen, far above the 19.8 million crossings by mainlanders the other way, according to Hong Kong immigration statistics.
Just in the past month, the number of Hong Kongers who went to Shenzhen was almost triple the corresponding figure for mainlanders.
The Chinese government has long wanted to integrate Hong Kong with the mainland, after the British colony was returned to Chinese rule in 1997. Beijing has stepped up these efforts since it imposed a national security law in mid-2020, increasingly unifying Hong Kong's economic goals, political system and educational curriculum with its own.
The traffic trends, however, are now hurting business sentiment, particularly in Hong Kong's retail and hospitality sectors.
Annie Tse, chairwoman of the Hong Kong Retail Management Association, said retailers are "extremely worried."
"More Hong Kongers will head north next year compared with the first half of this year, when the exodus had not really surfaced following the city's reopening of its borders with the mainland," she said.
The Communists have never figured out (nor will they ever) that rich nations didn’t become rich because of luck, they became rich because of government policies that rewarded hard work and innovation. Imposing Communism on them simply destroys that wealth, it doesn’t capture it.
Must have gotten much easier - last time I made that land crossing going the other way (Shenzhen to HK) it took about 2 1/2 hours. Way too much trouble just for slightly cheaper food. :)
Still, that’s considerable time overhead. Let’s say it’s an hour to an hour and a half to deal with the border crossing both ways. It’s something you might do every now and then just to see what’s on the other side, but not something you’d want to have to do daily or even multiple times a week.
Canadians come down over our Border to shop at Christmas.
Same kind of thing.
When I use to work at the Mall over Christmas there were many Middle East groups who came there to shop...all from Canada. It was the only time we saw them there.
My daughter moved from Hong Kong to Shenzhen about 5 years ago. Not only for lower rents and lower cost of living, but also for proximity to her clients (she runs a Chinese/English translation business).
“...it took about 2 1/2 hours.”
My last border crossing from Shenzhen to Hong Kong took five hours. It was during Covid. I thought that was going to be a riot because there were no bathrooms on the Chinese side and the people were furious. My female first officer had to go P about four hours into it and I told her there’s no way we’re stepping out of line to go outside of the building to use the bathroom. It was unreal.
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