The World Health Organisation (WHO) declared Hong Kong to be effectively SARS-free today, taking it off the list of places with continuing new infections.
The announcement came after the former British colony went 20 days - twice the usual incubation period - without any new cases of the potentially fatal respiratory disease.
The city, which was close to mass panic at the height of the epidemic in late March, clocked 20 straight days without any new infections by midnight on Sunday, fulfilling the WHO's condition for removal from its list of areas affected by Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome.
The epidemic devastated Hong Kong's tourism industry and top government officials are today expected to unveil plans to lure back visitors and revive the economy.
Business and leisure travellers shunned the territory as the disease spread while local consumers avoided shops, restaurants and other public places, fearing they could catch the deadly respiratory disease.
At one point hotel occupancy rates dwindled into the single digits.
Many shop owners were forced to lay off staff, sending the city's unemployment rate soaring to a record high of 8.3 per cent. With business trickling back only slowly, more job cuts are expected in the months to come.
Economists say its badly hit tourism and leisure industries may not recover to pre-SARS levels until late this year or early in 2004.