Carrie Lam File Photo:Xinhua

 
Carrie Lam, chief executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), said on Tuesday that the local government will recruit more truck drivers, as well as transporting goods from the Chinese mainland to Hong Kong by sea, China Media Group (CMG) reported. 

Lam said the epidemic has disrupted the work of cross-boundary truck drivers, as many of them are living in buildings with cases of coronavirus. Over 20 percent of drivers are currently unable to work, causing delays in supplying goods to Hong Kong, as well as higher vegetable prices.

Lam said that the government, together with the Chinese mainland, will set up a working group in order to ensure the transportation of non-medical supplies, including recruiting more cross-boundary drivers and ensuring that they take nucleic acid tests daily. 

The SAR government is also in communication with maritime companies to deliver goods to Hong Kong by sea, in the hope that the government can ensure the daily needs of the public while fighting the epidemic, Lam said, adding that the public should not be overly anxious.

Hong Kong is going through a difficult fifth wave of the epidemic and Lam said that the local government has support from the central authorities and will spare no effort to combat COVID-19, according to a report by Xinhua on Monday.

Since the new flare-ups of the epidemic, the Chinese mainland has increased the supply of goods to Hong Kong. South China's Guangdong Province is an important supplier of food to the SAR. Recently, the province has continued to ensure the safe and stable supply of various products to Hong Kong, such as vegetables and chilled meat, CMG reported on Monday. 

An employee from a chilled chicken production company in Qingyuan City, Guangdong, told the Global Times on Tuesday that the company was affected at the beginning of the outbreak in Hong Kong, but with the government's efforts, the number of chilled chickens supplied to Hong Kong quickly returned to the usual level, with higher efficiency in customs clearance of goods and vehicles.

According to Hong Kong media outlet HK01, the SAR government said that the supply of vegetables from the mainland on Monday returned to about 70 percent of the usual levels, and the overall wholesale price of vegetables fell slightly. The overall volume of chilled poultry and meat to Hong Kong reached about 60 percent of the usual levels, while the supply of live pigs remains stable.