Customs officers at the port of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge inspect longan before releasing the fruit to Hong Kong on Monday evening. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

A batch of fresh longan produced in Maoming, a major agricultural production area in Guangdong province, was exported to Hong Kong via the port of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge on Monday evening. The shipment marked the first batch of fruit supplied to Hong Kong under a program enabling the export of fresh food via the bridge at designated times, which was implemented on July 1.

The shipment, weighing four metric tons, was picked up on Monday morning and arrived at a fruit wholesale market in Hong Kong later that evening.

Prior to implementation of the program, fruit was usually shipped to Hong Kong via Shenzhen, which took more time according to Huang Jinbo, a manager with Zhuhai's fruit processing and distribution center for Hong Kong and Macao.

"Exporting fruit via the bridge helps greatly reduce costs in logistics and reduce transportation time," Huang said.