Hong Kong can expect millions more tourists from the mainland this year as China extends its travel scheme to visitors from nine more cities.

A total of 43 million residents of Nanjing, Suzhou, Wuxi, Hangzhou, Ningbo, Taizhou, Fuzhou, Xiamen and Quanzhou will be eligible to travel to Hong Kong from July 1.

Then 150 million people from 32 mainland cities will be eligible to visit Hong Kong.

Hong Kong is confident of coping with the upsurge in visitors and is planning to extend the scheme to more cities soon.

(CRI April 22, 2004)