The president of the Chinese Manufacturers’ Association of Hong Kong, Allen Shi, on Thursday called on the government to scrap the amber health code arrangement so the city can catch up with other places in opening up.

At present, incoming travellers no longer have to undergo hotel quarantine, but are given an amber code that bars them from going to restaurants or other regulated places for three days and requires them to test regularly for Covid-19, under the so-called “0+3” arrangement.

But Shi urged the government to scrap the amber code as well to achieve a “0+0” status.

"If we still don't implement the ‘0+0’ arrangement, it'd inevitably give people the impression that Hong Kong is not a hundred percent back yet," he said on an RTHK programme.

"When we do business, we don't just attend meetings, as many people haven't met face-to-face for a long time, everyone would like to go out for a meal, but they can't do that now," said Shi.

He suggested that as a first step, amber-code holders might be allowed to eat at specific areas in major exhibition venues.

"We should at least catch up with the opening up of the rest of the world in order to tell a good Hong Kong story for real, and to welcome international tourists and business travellers. This is something we urgently need to do.”

However, Health Secretary Lo Chung-mau stressed that the Covid situation in Hong Kong is still a public health emergency.

On his blog, he noted there have been suggestions that the SAR has fully returned to normalcy and the pandemic no longer amounts to a public health emergency, after large-scale international conferences and the Hong Kong Sevens were held this month.

Lo said whether or not the city has a public health emergency is decided upon based on local data and the global situation, but not one or two events or opinions from a couple of people.

"The Omicron strain is not Ebola, nor Sars. It is also not the coronavirus strain in early 2020, nor the flu either. Recently, the few thousand daily new cases still pose a threat to the lives and health of high-risk groups...which could also affect the operation of the public healthcare system," he wrote.

"Coupled with the threat of new variants, we believe that the Covid-19 outbreak is still a public health emergency for Hong Kong at this stage."

He added that the authorities will gradually resume more social and economic activities as the Covid situation stabilises, while protecting the health and safety of the city's residents.