Mega GBA bridge logs over 16M passengers in 2023

More than 16.3 million inbound and outbound passengers and 3.26 million vehicles passed through Zhuhai port of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge (HZMB) in 2023, 1.29 times and 3.8 times that of 2019, respectively, official data shows.

Tour groups drove the main passenger flow last year via the bridge, the longest bridge-and-tunnel sea crossing in the world, the bridge’s border inspection authorities said Tuesday.

Data shows that in 2023, more than 45,000 mainland tour groups traveled to and from Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) and Macao SAR via the bridge. In the meantime, residents in Hong Kong and Macao paid a record high of almost 10 million visits to the mainland via the bridge.

In 2023, the highest single-day passenger flow via the bridge reached 115,000, hitting a new high since the bridge entered into operation.

The 55-km HZMB links China’s Hong Kong SAR, the city of Zhuhai in the southern Guangdong Province, and Macao SAR. It has brought tremendous opportunities and benefits to the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA).

Since the implementation of policies to allow single-plated vehicles to head north into the mainland through the bridge early in 2023, there has been a strong demand from residents of Hong Kong and Macao to drive into the mainland during public holidays and weekends, according to customs.

Before the policies, only dual-plate vehicles — those registered both in the mainland and in Hong Kong or Macao — could make cross-border journeys.

On Christmas Day alone, the overall volume of inbound and outbound passenger and cargo vehicles reached 16,000, of which more than 14,000 were passenger vehicles, setting new records for daily vehicle traffic at the bridge port. (SD Xinhua)