The Hong Kong government has vigorously promoted the talent admission scheme in the past two years, hoping to attract high-end professionals to Hong Kong and promote local economic development. Today (27th), the authorities disclosed in a written reply to questions from Legislative Council members that nearly 180,000 applications have been received in the first 10 months of this year, of which nearly 120,000 have been approved, and the applicants are mainly concentrated in the Mainland.
Data shows that in the “High-Quality Talent Pass Scheme” (High-Quality Pass), 34,360 cases have been approved, of which 32,566 are from Mainland China, accounting for as high as 94.8%. In contrast, the proportion of applicants from Canada, the United States, Australia and Singapore is 1%, 0.88%, 0.66% and 0.35% respectively.
Another popular program, the “Quality Migrant Admission Scheme”, has 9,423 successful applications this year, of which 9,225 are from the Mainland, accounting for as high as 97.9%. The proportion of applications from Australia, Canada and the United States was 0.56%, 0.42% and 0.39% respectively.
Based on the regions of the universities where the applicants graduated from, applicants who graduated from Chinese universities accounted for 59.7% of the total number of approved applicants, reaching 14,332 cases; followed by applicants from universities in the United States (12.9%), Australia (10.9%), the United Kingdom (7.2%) and Canada (5.7%).
In addition, the number of dependants coming to Hong Kong through various schemes has also increased significantly. In the first 10 months of this year, about 75,000 dependants came to Hong Kong with successful applicants. Among them, 41,869 people were admitted under the High Talent Scheme, 15,652 people were admitted under the Quality Talent Scheme, and 7,685 people arrived in Hong Kong under the “Mainland Talent Admission Scheme”.
In order to further enhance the attractiveness, the Labour and Welfare Bureau implemented a number of optimization measures from the 1st of this month, including extending the first visa period for high-income talents in the High Talent Pass Program from two years to three years, expanding the list of eligible universities for the High Talent Pass Program, and improving the “Comprehensive Points System” application arrangement for the Quality Talent Program.
According to statistics from the Immigration Department, as of the end of October this year, about 75,000 successful applicants have arrived in Hong Kong. Overall, whether it is high-end talent or quality talent programs, the proportion of mainland applicants is overwhelmingly higher than that of other regions, becoming the main source of various talent entry programs.