POPULATION AND IMMIGRATION
attachments, while 6 370 serving officers received various types of job-related and management training. Of these, 27 were sent for overseas attachment and training.
Vietnamese Refugees and Migrants
Since 1975, Hong Kong has received more than 200 000 people from Vietnam. No Vietnamese asylum seeker has ever been turned away.
Despite its tiny size and overcrowding, Hong Kong has absorbed some 15 000 Indo- Chinese people since the late 1970s. At the end of 1999, 968 Vietnamese refugees and 561 Vietnamese migrants remained in the HKSAR. This was after the resettlement of more than 143 000 Vietnamese refugees in other countries and the repatriation of more than 67 000 Vietnamese migrants.
With the formal conclusion of the internationally agreed Comprehensive Plan of Action and in view of the changed circumstances in Vietnam, the HKSAR ended the port of first asylum policy for Vietnamese with effect from January 9, 1998.
In practice it means that the special statutory provisions on the screening for refugee status and related review procedures for Vietnamese cease to have effect on new arrivals from that date. These people are treated in the same way as illegal immigrants from elsewhere. That is, they will be repatriated as soon as possible.
In 1999, the HKSARG continued to ask the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to seek resettlement opportunities for the Vietnamese refugees and continued with efforts to repatriate the Vietnamese migrants.
Ex-China Vietnamese
The Ex-China Vietnamese are those who settled in the Mainland before arriving in Hong Kong irregularly. They are predominantly ethnic Chinese who fled Vietnam in the early 1980s. Having obtained asylum in the Mainland, they are considered to have no further claim for refugee status or resettlement in other countries. The Government's policy has been to detain them and repatriate them to the Mainland, where they had already found protection.
Over the years, more than 23 700 Ex-China Vietnamese were repatriated to the Mainland. The repatriation of the last group of Ex-China Vietnamese, involving some 320 persons, has been held up because of the judicial review proceedings they have brought against the HKSAR Government. At the end of the year, their case was being considered by the court.
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