Hong Kong may be a special administrative region, but Shenzhen residents see it is a special shopping zone, with a quarter of the Guangdong city's residents crossing the border more than once a month last year, a poll found.

A Shenzhen trade association in conjunction with a local consulting firm surveyed 2,100 people last year, finding that 27 percent had visited Hong Kong specifically to shop - nearly three times the figure for 2010.

While most mainlanders need to obtain a permit for each entry, Shenzhen residents can come and go with ease under the multiple-entry scheme introduced in 2009.

To view the full article (note: you must be an scmp.com subscriber), visit scmp.com. (From seven days after publication, this article will appear in Archive Search.)