Macau recorded 803,000 entries and exits on Saturday, breaking the previous highest single-day number of people entering and exiting the city record, a 6.6 percent increase over the 753,000 border crossings made on August 24 last year, Public Security Police (PSP) announced in a statement yesterday.
Among Saturday’s record number of locals and visitors crossing Macau’s border checkpoints, 53.7 percent of the entries and exits were made through the Barrier Gate checkpoint, or 430,000 border crossings, a record for the total number of entries and exits on a single day since the COVID-19 pandemic, the statement said.
Macau’s three-year COVID-19 pandemic curbs began in January 2020.
The Qingmao pedestrian checkpoint recorded nearly 124,000 entries and exits, or 15.4 percent of the total number of border crossings on Saturday, the statement said. The Macau-Hengqin joint checkpoint recorded over 100,000 entries and exits, or 12.5 percent of the total.
About 169,000 tourists arrived in Macau on Saturday, among who mainlanders totalled 131,000, or 77.6 percent, while Hongkongers totalled 27,000, or 15.8 percent, the statement said.
Since January 1, permanent residents of Zhuhai City have been able to apply for a “one trip per week” permit for Macau. Under the policy, they can visit Macau once per calendar week, with a maximum stay of seven days per trip.
With the approaching Chinese New Year (CNY) holiday and the new measures for travelling to Macau, the number of arrivals and departures is expected to remain at a high level, the statement said.
The government has deployed additional police officers to open additional lanes in a timely manner to ease the passenger and vehicle traffic, and closely cooperate and communicate with the relevant departments to ensure that the traffic in various checkpoints runs smoothly, the statement said.
Border crossers walk to the Barrier Gate border checkpoint last month. – Photo: Tony Wong
