RUSH hour at Macau's major border checkpoint usually means long queues and impatient crowds.

In addition to thousands of locals, the Border Gate is also the point at which many of Macau's estimated 100,000 migrant labourers cross over from Zhuhai in mainland China, where they live.

During peak hours, the checkpoint runs at near full capacity, and the halls are jammed with angry people booing and grumbling.

A visitor could take an hour to clear all the checks and cross the border, while someone living in Macau could use resident channels to make the journey in under 20 minutes.

This, coupled with a special rule involving children from Macau, has led to the birth of a new business, reported the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

The rule states that anyone 'guarding' a Macau child can use resident channels to make the crossing.

Along with the summer crowds, 'family businesses' have appeared, involving people offering to rent their children to travellers for between 10and 20 patacas (between $1.70 and $3.40).

SCMP reported that there are also other tricks used by those wanting to leave Macau more quickly.

An immigration source told the newspaper that more mainland Chinese were choosing to overstay for a day or two in order to use a special channel for violators.

The source said: 'There are mainland grannies asking where the 'fine' channel is. They are happy to pay a negligible fine.'

The fine turns out to be a mere 20 patacas a day.

SCMP quoted the source as saying that the fine was an 'outdated penalty' that 'allowed people to turn what was supposed to be a punishment into a reward'.

The border crossing is designed for up to 300,000 passenger trips a day.

But real world use suggests that the immigration officers are already overstretched by the daily traffic of 250,000 travellers.

Queue cutting is common, as is pushing and shoving.

And to make things worse, Macau is plagued by a large number of smugglers, known locally as 'ants'.

These smugglers often take the form of trolley-pushing grannies who bring different varieties of meat from Zhuhai to Macau, and other kinds of commodities in the opposite direction.

The crowding at the border has not gone unnoticed.

The Macau government has launched a 170-million pataca project to expand the gate.

It is due to be completed at the end of next year, and will double the number of electronic channels.

This would hopefully expand the checkpoints capacity to half a million travellers a day.

Other measures under consideration include opening the electronic channels, which only Macau residents can use, to people from Hong Kong and the mainland.

Legislator Au Kam-san is also calling the checkpoint to be open 24 hours. It currently operates from 7am to midnight.

Mr Au said: 'Exchange between Macau and the mainland is fast growing with a lot of people living on one side while working on the other. Having 24-hour crossing will help ease the traffic.'

This article was first published in The New Paper on Jul 30.

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