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Population and Immigration
documents; handling nationality and residency matters; and registering births, deaths and marriages. The department enhances these services using advanced information technology.
The department had 6,212 disciplined staff members and 1,565 civilian staff members as at 31 December.
Immigration Control
Hong Kong welcomes visitors and adopts an open visa policy. People from about 170 countries and territories may visit Hong Kong visa-free for seven to 180 days. More than 290 million. people entered and left the city in 2017, an increase of 0.9 per cent from 2016. Over 110 million people arrived by land, including more than 39 million visitors, most of whom were Mainland residents. The e-Channel, an electronic system installed at boundary crossings including vehicular control points, provides automated immigration clearance for Hong Kong residents, enrolled Consular Corps Identity Card holders, visitors and eligible Mainland visitors. The new Smart Departure system allows eligible visitors holding electronic travel documents to perform self-service departure clearance through the e-Channels without prior enrolment.
Reciprocal use of automated immigration clearance services is in place with Australia, Germany, Singapore and South Korea. This allows greater travel convenience for passport holders of the HKSAR and of the participating countries.
Legal Immigration
The Mainland is the major contributor to Hong Kong's immigrant population. In 2017, about 47,000 Mainlanders joined their families in Hong Kong under the One-way Permit Scheme, which imposes a daily quota of 150.
Right of Abode
Article 24 of the Basic Law states that Hong Kong permanent residents, regardless of their nationalities, have the right of abode in the HKSAR and may obtain permanent identity cards.
Under Article 24(2)(3) of the Basic Law, Chinese nationals born outside Hong Kong of Hong Kong permanent residents are entitled to be HKSAR permanent residents with the right of abode. The Immigration Ordinance stipulates that for a person to qualify for the right of abode under Article 24(2)(3), one of the natural parents must be a Chinese citizen who has the right of abode at the time of that person's birth.
The Certificate of Entitlement Scheme, introduced on 10 July 1997, requires that a person's status as an HKSAR permanent resident under Article 24(2)(3) can be established only by holding a valid travel document such as a One-way Permit with a valid certificate of entitlement affixed to it. This enables systematic verification of right-of-abode claims and ensures orderly entry. Between 1 July 1997 and end-2017, some 212,900 certificate of entitlement holders entered Hong Kong from the Mainland.
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