By the end of 2005, more than 10 million Chinese mainland visitors had visited Hong Kong under the Individual Visit Scheme, representing 36.1 percent of total visitors from the Chinese mainland since it was introduced on July 28, 2003.

The Individual Visit Scheme has expanded to a total of 38 Chinese mainland cities from the initial four Chinese mainland cities of Guangdong Province's Dongguan, Zhongshan, Jiangmen and Foshan, Hong Kong Director of Immigration Lai Tung-kwok said at the department's year-end briefing 2005 on Monday.

He said the four cities newly added to the scheme's list were Chengdu, Jinan, Shenyang and Dalian.

In another development, 4,029 applications for the Admission Scheme for Chinese Mainland Talents and Professionals (ASMTP) were approved in 2005.

Lai said the introduced talents are mainly professionals of scientific research, finance and art performance. According to statistics, 1.5 additional posts are created for the local job market for each professional admitted.

In the year under review, 205.9 million passengers and cross-boundary vehicles passed through our control points, up 5.3 percent from 195.6 million in 2004.

Passenger traffic at air and sea control points also soared to 26 million and 21.5 million respectively, a year-on-year increase of 7.4 percent and 0.5 percent respectively.

(Xinhua News Agency January 24, 2006)