By Dhirendra Tripathi
Investing.com – Shares of Melco Resorts (NASDAQ:MLCO) and Wynn (NASDAQ:WYNN) rose 5% and 2.5%, respectively, Monday on a report in South China Morning Post that Hong Kong residents would be allowed to enter the mainland from early December without undergoing quarantine.
This limited reopening comes about two weeks sooner than originally planned, the report said.
The number of visitors will initially be limited to “only a few hundred per day” and then “a few thousand” in the following months once a testing and tracking system is put in place, according to the report.
Reopening to China is key to reviving the flow of people into Hong Kong and crucial to the city’s economy.
Hong Kong and China have had strict restrictions on the movement of people to prevent the spread of Covid-19.
According to a separate report in SCMP today, a visiting delegation from Beijing urged local officials to bolster efforts to shut out imported cases. It was mostly satisfied with the city’s overall strategy to keep the virus in check and create conditions to allow the border to reopen, according to this report.
SCMP said Tam Yiu-chung, Hong Kong’s sole delegate to China’s top national legislative body, has been told to travel to Beijing next month after being denied the permission in October on grounds of a single coronavirus infection on the island.