Former Chief Executive CY Leung questions the effectiveness of Hong Kong’s talent-attracting visas…
Chris Sun, the secretary for labour and welfare, published a post titled, “Debunking myths about Hong Kong’s talent admission schemes,” on the bureau’s Facebook page on Monday night, after former chief executive Leung Chun-ying cast doubt on the policy.
On February 23, Leung wrote on Facebook in Chinese that “recently, in different cities and occasions in mainland China, I met [mainland talent] who came to Hong Kong under various talent schemes but they immediately returned to the mainland.”
“They came to Hong Kong just to obtain residency status, solely to conveniently travel to and from Hong Kong; to enrol their children in either schools for Hong Kong residents’ children in mainland China or in Hong Kong schools; or even to enjoy a tax rate for Hongkongers in mainland China,” he continued.
“All these practices go against the original intention of Hong Kong’s talent policies.”
No shortage of anecdotes about Mainlanders – who apply for most of the visas – getting low-level jobs like insurance sales to pass the time here. CY could have added that some of the visa recipients are also concerned with getting their parents into the public health-care system.
In theory, the visas are intended to attract energetic types who will do wonders for the economy. But in practice, their main purpose seems to be to counterbalance the outflow of local and expat middle-class residents over the last five years – to stop the population figures from looking worse. As with efforts to attract more tourists, officials seem driven by boosting numbers rather than anything else. And no-one actually asks how they could make Hong Kong a better place to live and work in.
Let’s see what impact the mainland ‘talents’ are having:
Retail sales: DOWN
Tax receipts: DOWN
Rents: UP
Big win for the landlords, of whom there are more than a few in government.
Still, the worst part of all this is that we’ve added ‘talent’ to the list of words Gamers don’t understand because of constant misuse.
“And no-one actually asks how they could make Hong Kong a better place to live and work in.”
That’s a little unfair — everyone already knows the one big thing that would make HK a better place to live and work in, and they also know that it’s been expressly forbidden by the CCP.