Beijing - One of China's main border crossings to North Korea reopened on Wednesday, more than three years after the government suspended tours because of heavy gambling by Chinese visitors.

State media said the government allowed Chinese day-trippers to cross the Yalu River again into North Korea from the north-eastern city of Dandong, which was one of the main departure points for gamblers until the ban.

The first group of 71 Chinese tourists crossed the river to the nearby North Korean city of Sinuiju early Wednesday, the official Xinhua news agency reported from Dandong.

The tourists, who were mostly Dandong residents, were the first to arrive in Sinuiju since February 2006 when the government suspended such tours to North Korea after "rampant gambling by Chinese tourists," the agency quoted Dandong police as saying.

Chinese citizens need a national identity card, but not a passport, to make the 690-yuan (102 dollars) trips, which must be individually approved by the police, local tour manager Ji Chengsong told the agency.

Ji said the one-day programme covers six scenic sites in Sinuiju, including a "museum on the revolutionary deeds of Kim Il Sung", the former leader of the isolated communist nation.

Authorities have also allowed similar tours to resume from two other Chinese towns bordering Russia and one close to Vietnam, the agency said.

The Chinese government had also put pressure on North Korea and several other neighbouring countries, including Myanmar, to close casinos which were aimed mainly at Chinese visitors.

Most forms of gambling remain illegal in China, other than state-run lotteries and small-scale "tote"-system betting on horse-racing in a few areas.

A rapidly growing number of mainland Chinese people have been joining gambling tours to licensed casinos in the Chinese territory of Macau in recent years. (dpa)