The central government has greenlighted yachts from Hong Kong and Macau to enter nine mainland Chinese cities in the Greater Bay Area (GBA) without customs guarantees and with temporary ship registrations.

The State Council said on Friday that the pilot scheme came into effect the same day.

The nine cities are Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Foshan, Huizhou, Dongguan, Zhongshan, Jiangmen, and Zhaoqing.

The State Council also said it had “temporarily adjusted” two maritime ordinances to relax restrictions for Hong Kong and Macau yachts travelling to the Greater Bay Area.

The Hong Kong government said on Saturday that it welcomed the new policy.

“Under the new policy, the exemption [from] the requirement for a guarantee will significantly reduce the financial burden” on yacht owners, it said in a statement.

It also praised the simplified registration scheme, which allows Hong Kong and Macau yachts to obtain temporary national ship registration from mainland China “without affecting their original ship registration.”

Owners of Hong Kong and Macau yachts previously had to pay hefty customs guarantees and undergo complex registration procedures before entering mainland ports.

According to the Saturday statement, the Hong Kong Marine Department will “continuously review and refine the facilitation measures for the northbound travel of yachts from Hong Kong and southbound travel for yachts from the Chinese Mainland to foster a healthy, sustainable and competitive environment for the development of the local yacht economy.”

Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee first proposed boosting the local yacht economy in his 2025 Policy Address in September.

The following month, the government announced new initiatives, including providing 600 additional yacht berths at the former Lamma Quarry, expanding the Aberdeen Typhoon Shelter and the Hung Hom Station waterfront projects, and a planned yacht bay at Airport City.

China proposed changes on Friday to its household registration system, calling for more cities to abolish restrictions that have impacted migrant workers for decades, state media reported.

The permanent residence system, or “hukou”, was first introduced in the 1950s to regulate population mobility, and classifies Chinese people as either “urban” or “rural”.

Most Chinese citizens can only benefit from certain public services, including health insurance and education, where they are registered — generally their place of birth — despite a huge migrant worker population in most major cities.

On Friday, China’s cabinet, the State Council, released guidelines calling for cities to give citizens “fair” access to services despite their residency status, state broadcaster CCTV reported.

The document “very much reflect(s) the spirit of the Fifteenth Five-Year Plan”, China’s recently released economic and social blueprint for the next five years, said Ying Zhang of the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).

“So this is not surprising, though it is encouraging to see these ideas emerging at this particular moment.”

The guidelines called for the “complete elimination” of household registration restrictions on migrants’ participation in employee social insurance.

Their access to “basic medical security” in their place of residence should be strengthened, the statement added.

The guidelines also proposed improving “educational guarantees” for migrant children, including increasing the proportion of them attending public schools during the compulsory education stage.

“Promoting equal access to basic public services for non-registered permanent residents and registered residents is conducive to meeting the people’s growing needs for a better life and releasing domestic demand potential,” the State Council said.

Experts said that smaller cities in China have already implemented similar policies as part of their efforts to attract more people.

“The key question that needs to be examined is the extent to which China’s mega-cities such as Beijing and Shanghai will adopt such measures,” said the EIU’s Zhang.