Hong Kong approves more than 360 applicants over 5 years in talent schemes with expanded list of professions
- Asset management emerges as sector with highest number of approvals
- Admission Scheme for Mainland Talents and Professionals took in bulk of applicants across three programmes
The Hong Kong government has over five years approved 361 applicants to work in the city under three talent admission schemes with an expanded list of professions covered.
Statistics released on Wednesday by the Labour and Welfare Bureau show that from 2018 to May 2023, there were 364 applications through the Quality Migrant Admission Scheme (QMAS), the General Employment Policy (GEP) and the Admission Scheme for Mainland Talents and Professionals (ASMTP), with 99 per cent accepted.
The department provided the figures in response to a question by lawmaker Chan Pui-leung on the approval status of the programmes after authorities last month expanded the number of professions covered from 13 to 51.
Hong Kong has a total of seven talent schemes, with the latest introduced by Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu last December. Called the Top Talent Pass Scheme, it is aimed at plugging a shortfall of at least 140,000 people who have left Hong Kong’s workforce.
All schemes, with streamlined work visa processes, enable companies to hire foreign and mainland Chinese professionals without proving that they cannot fill the positions with local recruits.
Among the three schemes raised by the department on Wednesday, ASMTP applicants – meaning those from the mainland – made up 90 per cent of entries. Foreign applicants in the other two schemes comprised those from the United States, which had 10 candidates; Australia, with four; Canada, with three and 19 classified as “others”.
Armstrong Lee Hon-cheung, managing director of executive search firm Worldwide Consulting Group, said language was one reason mainlanders were dominating the schemes.
