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A group of women from the mainland load up on a shopping trip. Photo: Nora Tam

Slump in Shenzhen visitors to Hong Kong but parallel traders are still everywhere, locals complain

A visa crackdown a year ago has cut the number of arrivals from the mainland by 57 per cent, but Sheung Shui residents are far from happy and another protest is planned

One year after the central government limited Shenzhen residents to “one visit per week”, the number of mainland visitors coming to Hong Kong on multiple-entry visas has dropped by 57.3 per cent to 6.3 million.

But Sheung Shui residents said their lives had not been made easier as parallel traders – who buy goods in Hong Kong to sell at a profit on the mainland – were still all over the place, despite some traders saying Shenzhen customs had stepped up checks.

The issue has prompted a local concern group to plan another protest in early May.

Cheung Kin-ping, 61, grandmother of a three-year-old boy, said the problems caused by inflows of parallel traders “were not solved at all”.

She said she still had to be “extremely careful” when sending her grandson to kindergarten every morning. “I fear those large trolley suitcases will hit him. They [traders] walk so fast.”

Vivian Tam Shung-ying, another Sheung Shui resident, said many local shops such as Hong Kong-style cafes had been squeezed out.

Ronald Leung Kam-shing, a spokesman for the North District Parallel Imports Concern Group – which organised many protests against parallel traders – said it planned another rally next month as cross-border tensions had become “even worse”.

Protesters at the “reclaiming Sheung Shui” demonstration last year clashed with parallel traders and police, violence that the government and the tourism sector said had caused great damage to the city’s image.

Leung said those who did not live in the area had no right to criticise and had “better shut up”.

Since the authorities stepped up enforcement action in September 2012, immigration officials had arrested 2,760 mainland visitors for breaching their conditions of stay by conducting parallel trading. More than 200 were convicted and jailed for up to three months.

At the same time, a price war has broken out among local pharmacies favoured by mainland shoppers who buy milk powder and daily consumables, due to a combination of fewer customers and more competitors.

Chan Kwong-sang, who works at Ching Hong Pharmacy in Sheung Shui, said customer numbers were down by half on a year ago, prompting it to slash prices by as much as 20 per cent.

Parallel traders back in Hong Kong after ‘useless’ four-day crackdown by mainland Chinese authorities

Baby Formula “barely made any money” now, Chan said. The shop made just HK$1 to HK$2 for a can of HK$300 milk powder sold, compared with more than HK$10 previously. “We still sell them because they help attract more customers to our shop,” Chan said.

But not all pharmacies in the area have suffered so badly.

Health and Beauty Cosmetics Pharmacy and Royal Pharmacy said customer numbers were “more or less the same” since the visa policy took effect, but their profits were squeezed due to more competitors.

Hong Kong rally against convictions of anti-parallel traders protesters

According to the Rating and Valuation Department, the rent for a shop near the core business area was up 10 to 20 per cent compared with a year ago.

Lily Li, a Shenzhen resident who runs an online store selling imported baby products, used to visit at least twice a week but is now restricted to one trip.

“Many regular clients expressed their concerns, but the new visa policy has affected our business less than we originally expected.” she said. “The demand is still there. We just buy more every time.”

Additional reporting by Christy Leung

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