Hekou Border applies inspection convenience cards

Updated: 2011-08-22

In the seven years since the border inspection convenience card was applied in July 2004, the Hekou-Laocai border inspection station has issued 3,900 border inspection convenience cards, saving nearly nine million yuan for inhabitants of the two countries in the border area, according to the Hekou port border inspection department.

Hekou border checkpoint is China’s first-class open port, with 9,000 passengers and 500 vehicles leaving or entering the country a day. It is the most convenient land passageway in southwest China to join Southeast Asia and South Asia. It has become the largest land route of Yunnan province in cargo throughput for many years.

In recent years, China and Vietnam have continually “warmed up” import and export trade and cross-border tourism. In July 2004, Hekou border inspection station signed minutes of talks with Vietnamese Laocai border inspection station. The two parties agreed that tour guides and truck drivers from companies of high credibility in port cities of the two countries may apply for border inspection convenience cards, free of charge, with duplicated copies of their identity card, company certificates, and photo credentials with their country’s border inspection stations. With the border inspection convenience cards, the tour guides and truck drivers may come and go across the border as they please when they have their Sino-Vietnamese Entry and Exist Pass stamped with a pair of customs seals each week. A border inspection convenience card is valid for half a year at the Hekou-Laocai port. People may apply for a new card for free when the service life expires.

According to Chen Jihong, commissar of Hekou border inspection station, the border inspection authorities of the two countries have started a new round of talks. They are expected to expand the coverage of the border inspection convenience cards within the year to business persons of the two countries.