Social Impact
The Hong Kong Government repeatedly pointed out that the crime rate of Mainland visitors under the scheme was very low. From August 2003 to May 2004, the number of individual visitors who were arrested for committing crimes such as theft or fraud was only 183, compared with more than 2 million visitors under the scheme.
Mr. Chan Wing-Kai, the head of the Consumer Complaints & Advice Council, said, "The percentage of complaints made by individual visitors is 9.3%, which is relatively low." The number of complaints made by individual visitors up to October was around 50. Many cases were due to misunderstandings, such as differences between consumer cultures.
One of the complaints was that some visitors were charged unfairly when having seafood in Sai Kung. However, it is a common practice in Hong Kong that the price of bought seafood is separated from the cooking cost, whereas in Mainland China this is considered cheating.
Read more about this topic: Individual Visit Scheme
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