Joint checkpoint at rail link terminus may not be possible, lawmakers told

It may not be possible to set up a joint immigration checkpoint at the cross-border express rail link's West Kowloon terminus when the line opens in 2015 or 2016, lawmakers were told yesterday.

Transport secretary Eva Cheng said talks were continuing with the mainland over the possibility of such a checkpoint, but there were highly complex legal and security issues involved.

She said an interdepartmental committee had been formed, and the Department of Justice and the Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Bureau had been involved in discussions with the mainland side, but the immigration system may not be ready when the link opened.

A railway subcommittee discussed the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong express link's latest budget and alignment for the first time yesterday. Many lawmakers were concerned over customs and immigration clearance issues at the West Kowloon terminus.

'Is there going to be a checkpoint at every stop?' lawmaker Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee, former secretary for security, asked.

Lau Kong-wah, of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, said if passengers could complete all clearances before boarding a train that would take them directly to 16 major cities on the mainland, it would be so convenient that the link's effectiveness would even be greater than the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau bridge in 30 to 50 years.