As usual, Hong Kong held a flag raising ceremony, a grand reception, singing and dancing performances and a firework show to celebrate this year's National Day that falls on Wednesday.

Different from that past National Days that fell on each Oct. 1, much more activities or services were arranged for tourists, especially those from the Chinese mainland, the top tourism sourcing market for Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

Described as "Golden Week", the National Day holidays in the Chinese mainland falls between Oct. 1 to Oct. 7, during which tens of millions people would travel to other cities or even foreign countries. Over 300,000 Chinese mainland tourists are expected to visit Hong Kong during the "Golden Week".

Just by Wednesday evening, over 130,000 tourists arrived in Hong Kong via various cross border checkpoints, about 80,000 of them came from the Chinese mainland, local radio reported.

Attracting tourists and businessmen to Hong Kong is believed to be one of the major programs for Hong Kong relaunch, various departments and sectors have been making more preparations for welcoming Chinese mainland tourists.

Acting Director of Immigration Wong Tatpo visited the Lo Wu checkpoint earlier Wednesday to observe passenger traffic situation on the National Day.

Wong said that his visit is to let his staff know that their efforts in expediting the clearance of passengers are greatly appreciated by the departmental management.

"Lo Wu check point is Hong Kong's biggest and busiest land boundary crossing. With the ebbing threat of SARS and the implementation of the Individual Visit Scheme, we expect that as many as 3.4 million passengers may take advantage of the National Day holidays to travel to and from the Chinese mainland by land of which some 70 percent may pass through Lo Wu," Wong said.

To ensure that the vast amount of passengers can be speedily and effectively dealt with, the Immigration Department has increased 266 staff members from other divisions to reinforce the work in the land boundary check points and prepared to extend the service hours.

Wong said that coupled with the joint efforts of client departments and the Chinese mainland counterparts, the low of passengers through the Lo Wu check point is quite smooth.

To welcome millions of visitors from the Chinese mainland, a number of big banks as Standard Chartered and Bank of China have decided to extend their business hours between one to three hours respectively.

Spokesman for the Bank of China (Hong Kong) Ltd said that the groups' 24 branches in Hong Kong will extend their business hours from 5:00 pm to 9:00 pm during the National Day holidays.

Apart from exchanging renminbi into HK dollars for Chinese mainland visitors, the bank also provides services as account opening, strongbox using and registration of stock exchange accounts.

Spokesman for Standard Chartered said that from Sept. 27 to Oct.12, its 10 branches would extend their business hours from 5: 00 pm to 6:00 pm, providing consultations and account opening services.

Hang Sheng Bank provides charge-free renminibi exchange service in Hong Kong metro stations.

In Causeway Bay's Shasha Cosmetics stores, more shop assistants were added even on the morning shift. Quite a number of Chinese mainland tourists spent half an hour or even over an hour to learn what are the most suitable world top brand cosmetic products for them and bought thousands of HK dollars of products for themselves or their friends.

In Sogo department store, not only the weekly routine sales are being arranged at its ninth floor for fashions and shoes, special sale activities are undergoing at the Sogo Ballroom between Oct. 1and Oct. 5.

Brand glasses as "Gucci", "Lancel", fur coats and leather coats as "Albertalli, "Schillaci" and handbags and shoes of "Braccilini", "Dupont" and "Clarks" as well as jewelry products of "Dior" and "Folli Follie" are sold at the ballroom.

(Xinhua News Agency October 2, 2003)