IMMIGRATION departments across China inspected 168 million border entries and exits in the first half of this year, up nearly 170% year on year, the National Immigration Administration said yesterday.

According to data released by the administration, around 80.3 million of the total entries and exits were made by mainland residents, and 74.9 million by residents from Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions and Taiwan.

More than 10 million ordinary passports were issued from January to June, the administration said. The number of documents issued for travel between the mainland and Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan jumped 15-fold year on year to 42.8 million, it added.

Immigration departments nationwide have led the crackdown on crimes against national border (frontier) control and on cross-border criminal activities.

In the first six months, 16,000 cases of obstructing national border (frontier) control were handled by the authorities, with 32,000 suspects arrested. Another 547 suspects were detained in 375 drug-related cases, with over 5 tons of drugs seized.

(Xinhua)