POPULATION AND IMMIGRATION
of the year, resulting in an increase in the numbers returning. A total of 5 581 persons returned to Vietnam voluntarily during the year, an average of 465 per month.
It is important that migrants returning to Vietnam should be assured that they may do so safely and without fear of persecution. The Hong Kong Government will not send back to Vietnam anyone whom they or the UNHCR believe is a genuine refugee. The Vietnamese Government has given firm guarantees that no returnees will be persecuted. All returnees are closely monitored on their return by the UNHCR to ensure that the guarantees are fully respected. Since March 1989, a total of 44 194 Vietnamese migrants have returned to Vietnam from Hong Kong and there has not been a single substantiated case of persecution to date.
At the same time, the Hong Kong Government and the international community recognise that while the economy in Vietnam has been improving gradually, returnees may have difficulties in re-establishing themselves on their return. The UNHCR therefore provides financial assistance to returnees to help them to resume their normal lives in Vietnam. The reintegration assistance programme run by the European Community in Vietnam has also offered returnees job creation schemes, training courses, start-up loans for businesses and helps finance local infrastructure and health projects. To complement these international efforts, the Hong Kong Government continued in 1994 to fund small-scale infrastructure projects in the poorer migrant-producing areas in Vietnam, in order to raise living standards and increase employment opportunities for returnees.
At the end of 1994, there were 22 614 Vietnamese migrants and 1 698 refugees in Hong Kong. Of the Vietnamese migrants, 22 433 had been screened out and 181 were awaiting screening. Those screened out have the right to have their cases reviewed by an independent Refugee Status Review Board (RSRB). Officials of the UNHCR are involved in monitoring the screening process and in preparing cases for review by the RSRB. Status determination procedures have now been completed for all Vietnamese migrants in the territory.
Since the introduction of screening in June 1988, 6701 people have been screened in as refugees and 52 506 have been screened out. At the review stage, in 21 835 cases involving 45 688 persons, the first instance decision has been upheld and in 1 098 cases involving 2 819 people, it has been reversed. The UNHCR has determined 1 465 people to be refugees under its own mandate.
The resettlement of refugees continued. During the year, 1 504 refugees were resettled overseas, with Canada, Australia and the United States remaining the three major resettle- ment countries. A total of 682 refugees left Hong Kong for the Regional Refugee Transit Centre in Bataan.
The cost of looking after the Vietnamese migrants and refugees in Hong Kong amounted to $930 million in 1994. The Hong Kong Government met $790 million of this cost. The United Kingdom Government contributed $92 million specifically for the UNHCR's programme in Hong Kong. The UNHCR agreed to meet $140 million of the 1994 cost, but at the end of the year, it had yet to repay the Hong Kong Government an outstanding debt of $981 million accumulated since 1989.
During the year, 542 ex-China Vietnamese illegal immigrants (ECVIIs), most of whom arrived in Hong Kong in 1993, were returned to China. The ECVIIS are those Vietnamese migrants who were resettled in China prior to their arrival in Hong Kong. Once they have sought and obtained asylum in China, they have no further claim to refugee status or
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