Cross-border road transport to Hong Kong designed to speed up transit gets off to slow start

Hong Kong truck drivers have complained of a slow start to a new arrangement for the collection and drop off of goods in mainland China, designed to speed up cross-border deliveries.

Some truckers complained about long waits for coronavirus test results on the Chinese side of the border on Monday, the first day of the streamlined system.

“Many of the drivers got stuck at the Shenzhen Bay control point. And many have problems going through the KuaJingAn system,” one driver surnamed Cheung said, referring to the mainland’s online system for the city’s drivers to log details of their journeys.

The point-to-point arrangement, announced on Sunday, allows Hong Kong truck drivers to go directly to pickup points over the border. The new system replaced a rule, in place since March, that drivers had to pass their cargoes to mainland truckers after they crossed the border.

But Cheung said drivers still needed to wait for more than an hour on the Hong Kong side for results of a coronavirus test before they could cross the border – and that the problems did not end there.

“On the mainland side, there will be another Covid test. It will be another five to six hours’ wait. And there are also problems uploading our information onto the KuaJingAn system,” he said.