It's an average day at Lo Wu on the Hong Kong-China border. A couple of well-dressed ladies chatter incessantly as they pass through the checkpoint pulling wheeled baggage trolleys behind them.
They are heading for the shopping center in the Chinese border city of Shenzhen. By the time they step back into Hong Kong in four hours' time, they will have filled their bags with fake-designer label clothes and accessories.
This is Lo Wu -- one of the busiest border crossings in the world -- and it is getting busier. An average of 246,000 people make this crossing between Hong Kong and China every day for work, rest or play. During the holidays the number goes up, as Hong Kong people flock to China to celebrate with relatives.
Between the Christmas and New Year's holidays this year, an estimated 3.6 million, people or 277,000 a day, will cross at Lo Wu -- 7.4 percent more than last year, and 44 percent more than five years ago when the territory was still under British control. To cope with the extra traffic, the immigration department has brought in an extra 47 staff.
For those who are not visiting family, shopping is high on the agenda with Hong Kong shoppers notching up bigger bills by the year in China. According to a recent survey, they will have spent US$2.4 billion in Shenzhen by the end of this year, twice as much as last year.
With its cheap prizes and vast array of fake goods, Shenzhen has become the bargain-hunter's paradise with the average person crossing the border spending US$44 on shopping and US$56 on entertainment. Clothes, shoes, handbags, VCDs and DVDs, nearly all of them cut-price counterfeits, are the most popular buys, accounting for 80 percent of all purchases.
It is not just bargains luring Hong Kongers over the border. More and more are also turning their backs on the local property market and buying homes in southern China at just a fraction of the cost of those in Hong Kong.
There they can enjoy the best of both worlds -- cheaper accommodation and food, while at the same time being able to tune into Hong Kong television, send their children to Hong Kong schools and commute to Hong Kong where wages are much higher.
"If it wasn't for the border, you wouldn't even notice you were living in the mainland," said one agent, who moved to Shenzhen with his family a year ago to save money. "It takes me 30 minutes to get to my office in the New Territories. It's very convenient."
A recent survey indicated that one in five people in Hong Kong would consider buying a home in China, while up to 50 percent said they may even look for work there.
Among those who said they would consider the move, 42 percent said they would look in Shenzhen, where property sells for about US$968.75 per ㎡, compared with US$2,906.25 in Hong Kong's New Territories.
Official estimates predict that by 2005 about 250,000, 3.5 per cent of Hong Kong's 6.8 million population, will live or own a home over the border, a sign that China and Hong Kong -- separated for 150 years by colonial British rule -- are now getting closer. The border once clearly marked is becoming a much less defined line.
Hong Kong businesses are of two minds about the border. On the one hand, the competition is bad news with many, particularly those in the New Territories, claiming they have been hit hard by the increase in spending on the mainland.
But on the other hand, they recognize the bonuses to be reaped for tourism and trade by closer association with China as it opens up to world markets.
At the moment, the border at Lo Wu, which handles 83 percent of all cross-border traffic, is open 17.5 hours a day. A contingent of business and trade organizations has pressed for 24-hour operation.
The government has so far resisted the move, but has acknowledged that it is the long-term "common goal" on both sides of the border.
However, despite the push for easier movement, there is also a strong feeling among Hong Kong people that the border should remain firmly intact.
Among those interested in buying property in China, 44 percent said their purchases would be second homes or holiday flats -- another indication of what they want from their relationship with the motherland.
Like the women on their shopping spree who several hours later cross back into Hong Kong laden with goods to their high-rise apartments, they want the best of both worlds.
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