By Dhirendra Tripathi

Investing.com – Shares of Melco Resorts (NASDAQ:) and Wynn (NASDAQ:) rose 5% and 2.5%, respectively, Monday on a report in South China Morning Post that Hong Kong residents would be allowed to enter the mainland from early December without undergoing quarantine.

According to the report, this limited reopening occurs approximately two weeks faster than was originally intended.

The number of visitors will initially be limited to “only a few hundred per day” and then “a few thousand” in the following months once a testing and tracking system is put in place, according to the report.

Reopening to China is key to reviving the flow of people into Hong Kong and crucial to the city’s economy.

To stop the spread of Covid-19, Hong Kong and China have imposed strict restrictions on movement to restrict the movements of individuals.

A separate SCMP report today reports that a Beijing delegation visited the city and urged officials to increase efforts to prevent imported cases. It was mostly satisfied with the city’s overall strategy to keep the virus in check and create conditions to allow the border to reopen, according to this report.

SCMP said Tam Yiu-chung, Hong Kong’s sole delegate to China’s top national legislative body, has been told to travel to Beijing next month after being denied the permission in October on grounds of a single coronavirus infection on the island.