Chief Executive of the Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) Chui Sai On hailed the central government decision on the new arrangement of service hours in three ports of entry between the mainland and Macao, according to a government statement available on Thursday.

The new entry and exit arrangement highlighted the central government's support for the SAR's stable development, improvement of Macao people's livelihood and cooperation with the mainland, he said during an inspection tour on Wednesday of the three ports of entry before the arrangement went into effect on Thursday.

Under the new arrangement, approved by the State Council, the Lotus port connected to Hengqin in the southern China coastal city of Zhuhai extends its service time to 24 hours. The previous service time went from 9:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.

Between 00:00 a.m. and 9:00 a.m. Thursday, a total of 1,293 border-crossings were recorded at the Lotus port, according to Ku Keng Hin, a senior officer with the immigration department of the SAR's Public Security Police.

The two other ports also extended their services by hours. At the Border-gate port, which has added two more hours of service under the new arrangement, a total of 5,814 border-crossings were recorded in the newly-extended period Thursday, according to police data.

"The dream of the SAR government and Macao people has come true with the new arrangement, which also manifests the fruitful cooperation between Macao and Guandong province," Cui said.

He also urged related departments of the SAR government to continue working hard to provide better services to local residents and visitors.

The SAR is closely connected with the Chinese mainland via land, sea and air routes. In 2013, Macao recorded a total of 16 million tourist arrivals via land routes, while 11 million tourist arrivals were made through sea routes. In the same period, the Macao Internaltional Airport handled more than 5 million passenger trips.

Macao is to celebrate the 15th anniversary of its return to the motherland on Saturday.

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