Horario extendido del paso fronterizo internacional Blagoveshchensk – Heihe

According to the press service of the Government of the Amur region, a meeting of the head of the Amur region Alexander Kozlov with the governor of Heilongjiang Province Lu Hao resulted in resolution to extend the operating hours of the international border crossing point. Starting from this moment, checkpoints of Blagoveshchensk (Amur region) and Heihe (China) will work two hours longer – until 23:00 (17:00 GMT). Earlier Russian border crossing point was open from 8:00 to 21:00 and Chinese – from 8:00 to 17:00.

“Today we take initial steps and extend operating hours of customs crossings. This measure will allow exploring the reasonability of the extended mode of operation of the customs crossings up to September, 11. This means that the last boats will depart from two countries simultaneously at 21:00 (Amur time) that is 3.5 hours later than now”, – said Alexander Kozlov.

Checkpoints’ operating hours will be extended due to the expected increase in the flow of tourists. According to preliminary data, about 80–85 thousand tourists from China are expected to visit the Amur region in 2016. Such an increase in the tourist traffic is caused by the simplification of the visa regime for tourist groups, according to which groups of five to fifty tourists may stay in Russia without a visa for 15 days. In the first half of 2016 Russia has already been visited by nearly 230 thousand tourists from China that is 43% higher than in the same period last year.