“If we may not achieve [reopening the border] very quickly, are there interim goals that we can achieve? I am formulating different options, so that I hope there will be less inconvenience for travelling across the mainland boundary,” Lee said.

Among the possible interim measures, Lee said he was considering shortening the mandatory hotel quarantine period for those arriving in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong’s John Lee looking to reopen mainland border, may cut quarantine

On Thursday, incoming health minister Dr Lo Chung-mau told a radio programme he would pursue the possibility of reducing the hotel quarantine period to no more than five days.

He added that any reduction would be coupled with other health requirements, such as self-isolation at home or point-to-point travel for visitors.

The chief executive-designate also said he would contemplate allowing inbound travellers to isolate at home as part of a wider strategy to open up to both the mainland and the rest of the world.

But business leaders and lawmakers said the measures would need to be implemented swiftly, noting Lee had not mentioned a timeline.

Legislator Chan Chun-ying, who represents the financial sector said the initiatives were “encouraging” but added that “these problems have to be addressed as soon as possible”.

The city’s strict entry curbs have already attracted criticism from business leaders and members of the tourism sector in recent months, amid concerns the international financial hub could lose out as the rest of the world opens up.

Hong Kong adheres to the nation’s “dynamic-zero” Covid-19 strategy, which focuses on identifying and cutting off transmission chains as quickly as possible.

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‘What needs to be done will be’: Hong Kong’s next leader John Lee | Talking Post with Yonden Lhatoo

‘What needs to be done will be’: Hong Kong’s next leader John Lee | Talking Post with Yonden Lhatoo

Authorities had already gradually reduced the hotel quarantine period from 21 days to seven to allow international travellers to enter the city.

However, lawmaker Jeffrey Lam Kin-fung, who is also vice-chairman of the Business and Professionals Alliance for Hong Kong, urged the incoming administration to do more.

“There should be two choices for the city: firstly, to allow home quarantine, subject to family circumstances, and secondly, scaling back hotel quarantine to three to four days,” he said.

Singapore, which had been opening up aggressively, was already attracting a lot of talent from Hong Kong, the legislator said.

Chan, meanwhile, said the seven-day quarantine period had become outdated since the incubation period of the Omicron variant, which is currently the most prevalent strain in the city, produced symptoms for just three days.

Reducing the quarantine period would make it easier for companies setting up their regional headquarters in Hong Kong to visit other branches in Asia, he said, adding it would also ensure overseas talents could travel home during the holidays.

Allan Zeman, chairman of the Lan Kwai Fong Group, said Lee’s suggestions were “a breath of fresh air” for the city.

The incoming leader could also explore setting up a “travel bubble” with several southern Chinese cities as part of a gradual reopening of the border with the mainland, he said.

Zeman, who was part of Lee’s advisory team during his election campaign, said the chief executive-designate should work on convincing central authorities to allow residents to travel to southern China without undergoing quarantine, ensuring they could easily arrange meetings with their mainland counterparts.

On Wednesday, the German Chamber of Commerce Hong Kong and the German Industry and Commerce released the results of a survey of its members regarding their outlook for the city.

More than two-thirds of the 109 respondents ranked the resumption of quarantine-free global travel as a top priority, while a third said they were considering a partial or full relocation in the next 12 months to other destinations such as Singapore.

The survey also found that 42 per cent of interviewees reported staff leaving their companies over the past two years because of the city’s strict coronavirus curbs.

‘Hong Kong’s border control rules untenable’, city logs 1,276 Covid cases

The impact on each company varied, with some respondents saying only a handful of employees had left, while others reported that 25 per cent of company staff had resigned.

One respondent said almost 50 per cent of their company’s expatriate staff had requested to return home, while 48 per cent of interviewees said they had experienced difficulties retaining employees who planned to leave Hong Kong.

George Leung Siu-kay, CEO of the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce, said the inability to fully reopen to the world remained a constraint for the city, adding that anti-epidemic measures had negatively impacted the local business environment.

“I expect economic growth for the whole of 2022. But so far it seems the second half of the year will perform better than the first. It all depends on the development of the pandemic and the reopening of borders,” he said.

2 top Hong Kong officials infected with Covid-19, Beijing ‘deeply concerned’

Hong Kong Tourism Association executive director Timothy Chui Ting-pong, however, said a balance needed to be struck between dialling back curbs and meeting the minimum requirements necessary for reopening the border with the mainland.

The latter was important as many Hongkongers had families on the mainland, he said, while mainland students had been unable to attend schools in Hong Kong.

The possible interim measures suggested by Lee came as the city continued to log coronavirus cases in the four-digit range, with health officials confirming 1,650 infections, of which 128 were imported, and one Covid-related death.

Additionally, three top officials have tested positive for Covid-19 and are currently undergoing isolation.