A passenger enters south China's Hong Kong from Shenzhen in south China's Guangdong Province on Sept. 15, 2021. A travel scheme, which allows non-Hong Kong residents from the mainland and the Macao Special Administrative Region to be exempted from the compulsory quarantine upon arrival, took effect on Wednesday.Photo: Xinhua

The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) will launch a local health code for the interface with the health code in South China's Guangdong Province, Chief Executive Carrie Lam said on Saturday, one day before her visit to Wuhan, Central China's Hubei Province.

According to Lam, after the health codes are interconnected, once a confirmed case of COVID-19 is reported in Hong Kong, the mainland authorities can immediately notify the related inbound persons through the real name-based health code.

The system development of the Hong Kong Health Code has been completed and is now undergoing final testing before going online. The SAR government will announce more details of the use of the code this week.

Experts said that Hong Kong has essentially met the conditions for border reopening with the mainland, and the launch of the health code is the first step for the city to comprehensively implement the managed reopening of the border.

On Sunday, the chief executive left Hong Kong for Wuhan, and she is scheduled to attend the first meeting on cooperation between the HKSAR and Hubei on Monday. Experts noted that the resumption of quarantine-free travel between the mainland and the HKSAR is also the central government's "special concern."

On November 26, Carrie Lam said that the second meeting on the anti-epidemic work of the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong held in Shenzhen on late Thursday has made progress, and Chinese mainland experts attending the meeting believe the city has basically met the conditions for border reopening with the mainland.