Individual tours to Hong Kong and Macao could be expanded to the whole of Guangdong Province next January, Governor Huang Huahua told a press conference in Guangzhou Tuesday.

The provincial government had already applied to the Central government for approval, Huang said after the conclusion of a meeting of his foreign advisers.

Since the individual tours to Hong Kong and Macao opened to residents in eight Guangdong cities earlier this year, some 550,000 people have submitted applications with 190,000 being approved.

Regarding security concern over a surge of individual travelers, Huang said that since the solo tours were permitted, only 17 people had been detained by Hong Kong police for illegal activities, a very small proportion.

"The government has been sparing no efforts to minimize the incidence of crime. . .so you don't have to worry about that," he said.

Governor Huang also disclosed that, after the signing of CEPA, the provincial government had mapped out some 83 areas for cooperation between Hong Kong and Guangdong.

These involve exchanges of culture, tourism, customs, education and other things aimed at developing Guangdong into a manufacturing base while at the same time giving play to Hong Kong's advantages as a service industry center.

Of these areas, 13 will be completed by the end of this year while five have already been completed, including three direct sea routes to Hong Kong, namely Shekou, Shenzhen airport and Dongguan.

Huang said the provincial government had not come up with any plans to develop a free trade area between Hong Kong and Shenzhen. However, it served as an area where the two places could work together.

Huang said Guangdong set no restrictions on either inbound or outbound investment and it encouraged its enterprises to go global.

The International Consultative Conference on Future Development of Guangdong (ICCFED), which was held in the White Swan Hotel of Guangzhou between Monday and Tuesday, received 26 reports from 27 foreign advisers to the governor. More than 430 journalists from 53 media organizations from home and abroad covered the conference.
 
(Shenzhen Daily November 5, 2003)