HK seeks to tighten visit scheme: chief executive

Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying said yesterday that the Individual Visit Scheme for tourists from the Chinese mainland is not expanding and the government is seeking to tighten it up. Speaking ahead of an Executive Council meeting yesterday morning, Leung said the overall number of mainland tourists visiting Hong Kong during the Lunar New Year was similar to last year, but the number of those came under the visit scheme dropped. Despite the drop, the government will discuss with mainland authorities measures to tighten arrangements under the scheme, Leung said, adding he understood that mainland tourism growth had placed pressure on local people’s livelihoods. He said that contrary to newspaper reports, the scheme was not being extended to more mainland cities, and that he had been advising the central government not to expand the scheme as Hong Kong’s capacity to receive tourists is limited. Leung added that the government will develop tourism facilities including shopping malls to increase its capacity for visitors.

Traffic peaks as CNY holiday ends

China’s railways, air routes and highways saw surging traffic yesterday as the week-long Lunar New Year holiday came to an end. Traffic authorities estimated that about 9.7 million trips were made by train and some 1.4 million by plane yesterday, setting new records. Another 73.6 million trips were made by highway. Altogether, Chinese passengers made 8.25 million trips by air during the week-long holiday, up 7.3 percent year on year, according to the Civil Aviation Administration of China. Every year, tens of millions of Chinese return to the cities where they work or attend school after reuniting with family during the Spring Festival, which fell on Feb. 19 this year. The pre- and post-holiday travel rush known as “Chunyun” in Chinese has been called the world’s largest human migration.

3 killed in illegal gold mine

Farmers trying to extract gold from an abandoned mine in central China were overcome by chemical fumes, leaving three dead and six hospitalized, state media reported yesterday. Rescuers were dispatched to the mine in Songxian County in the central province of Henan on Saturday after a tipoff from the public, the Xinhua News Agency said. Although the mine had been abandoned, making any operations there illegal, local farmers were hoping to separate remnants of gold from the rock with the use of chemicals such as sodium cyanide, Xinhua said. They were then apparently overwhelmed by the gasses released. Xinhua said the case remains under investigation. Yesterday was a national holiday and calls to the local government rang unanswered. No official notice was posted on the county’s website or official microblog. China has vastly improved its mine safety record in recent years through the closure of thousands of small operations.