two days of May, another 13 small boats have arrived carrying another 1,142 refugees. So we now have 23,963 refugees from Vietnam in Hong Kong. Even if the practice of chartering or purchasing ocean-going ships for the transport of people may now be too troublesome, the onset of warm weather and the fact that the prevailing winds are from the South-West for the next few months will make the passage of junks and other small boats easier.
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In relation to its size, Hong Kong is taking more than its fair share of the burden of providing facilities for the temporary asylum of refugees from Indochina. And, furthermore, given present population densities, and our other immigration problems, Hong Kong simply cannot contemplate accepting these people for permanent settlement; nor can they be permitted to disturb the labour market to the detriment of Hong Kong residents. For the time being, we shall just have to accept that a very real strain will be thrown on our administrative and social services, and face up to the drain on our financial resources. But it would be most unfair to demand of a community which, against great odds, has pulled itself up by its own efforts in a uniquely resourceless situation, to bear a disproportionate share of the burden of this regional problem indefinitely. And I say this against the background of the population surge we have experienced in the past 2 years as a result of net immigration from China and elsewhere. This has meant that we have lost ground in our efforts to improve the quality of life of Hong Kong people, for our planning targets are based on population projections which are no longer valid. The implications of the figures of net immigration from early 1977 to date for our future population growth are self-evident: projections based on the 1976 by-census, and what were then considered to be reasonable assumptions relating to net immigration, had suggested a population of about 5.2 million by 1986, implying, for example, a requirement for low-cost public housing for 11⁄2 million people over the 10 years ending 1986, after allowing for a large number still inadequately housed. A continuation of last year's rate of net immigration of 96,000 would raise the population to six million; yet even this projection could be too low should the present rate of net immigration continue. And the great unfairness of this project is that the rate of
natural increase has been so successfully contained in the past few years.
Mr. Chairman,
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