The old trade in addictive substances is alive and well in Macao, but now it is cigarettes, not opium that the citizens of Guangzhou are flocking to buy. Walking towards Gongbei port to travel to Macao from the mainland city of Zhuhai, the roadside is littered with cigarette sellers and buyers.

Happy shopper Fu Dianjun. Picture by Zhang Wenke

Every day people sit on whatever they can find, and sell hundreds of packets of cigarettes that they have bought in the former Portuguese colony of Macao. The tax on tobacco is lower in Macao than in mainland China, and local currency rates make buying cigarettes over the border an even better deal.

Locals from Zhuhai nip across to Macau to buy as many cigarettes as possible and immediately sell them on to people waiting just outside the border. Those buyers resell at a profit to mainland residents of Zhuhai, Guangzhou and Shanghai, at 60 RMB (£6) for a carton of 10 packets of cigarettes.  That compares with a price more than double this side of the border.

“I buy all my cigarettes from here as I find them so cheap,” said Fu Dianjun, from Guangzhou. “My main purpose to come to Zhuhai port was to buy these packs of cigarettes.”

Fu is far from alone as many others come to buy as many packs they can. Foreign brands such as Marlboro and Camels are popular, as are the cheaper local Chinese brands.

By Tayba Mohammad, Zhang Wenke and Chen Shenghua