Budget Speech

Individual Visit Scheme

54.      From the launch of the Individual Visit Scheme in July 2003 up till the end of last year, over 35 million Mainlanders had visited Hong Kong under the scheme, serving as an important stimulus for our various consumer industries. Last December, the Central Government announced additional measures to further facilitate Mainland residents to visit Hong Kong under the scheme, covering over 8.6 million residents of Shenzhen. As a next step, we will, in collaboration with the Guangdong and Macao governments, seek to extend the coverage of the pilot liberalisation measures from Shenzhen to the rest of Guangdong Province.