New border checkpoint
By Jenny Chan

The new Border Gate building.

The new border checkpoint at the Border Gate was opened on February 2. It is a two-storey building, the ground floor is for arrival and the upper one for departure. The new checkpoint is expected to manage a traffic of about 300,000 people each day, doubling the capacity of the old structure.

"It takes only about a minute in queuing," said Cheang Wai Lin, 38, a housewife in Macao, who always goes to Zhuhai for shopping. She also said that the new building looks like an airport with spacious environment.

Lau Sok Fan, a Year 4 university student commented the new border checkpoint as modernly designed. "But there isn't enough space for filling in a health declaration during peak time," added Lau.

The new building is equipped with lifts and escalators. People can use them to go to the upper level for departure. There are 38 counters to serve at the exit, while 33 counters on the ground floor for the entry. The computer system has been upgraded so that it takes on average five seconds to process a Macao resident and 30 seconds for a visitor.

The original one-storey border building had been used for nearly 11 years. It was not spacious enough to handle a large human traffic, especially in holidays. Whenever there were crowds in the lobby, the poor ventilation might cause people to faint. The situation got worse after the SARS period last spring. Since some medical staff were positioned at the checkpoint to take arrivals' temperature, the place became unbearably crowded.

The construction of the new building started on December 28, 2001 and cost MOP134 million. It is the central nexus connecting Macao with the Mainland in both trading and tourism. The building of the Border Gate Plaza and an underground passenger traffic station is the second phase of the project to eventually establish a well-designed transportation network.