EXTRACT FROM THE FAR EASTERN ECONOMIC REVIEW
DATED 3RD NOVEMBER, 1948.
10.
HONGKONG IMMIGRATION AND EMIGRATION
REPORT
From the officially compiled statistics it appears that both during last year and during the first eight months of 1948 there has been a steady outflow of people from the Colony. The number of passengers arriving in Hong Kong during 1947 was 1,508,880 and those who left last year by rail, sea and air were officially counted as 1,591,236, thus resulting in an emigration balance of 82,356 men and women, or 6,863 persons emigrating per average month.
During the current year (January to August) this trend was accentuated; a total of 1,286,835 persons entered the Colony while 1,384,166 persons left, resulting in an emigration balance of 97,331 persons, or a monthly average emigration figure of 12,166. The increase in this year's emigration over 1947 is no less than 77.27%.
The semi-official estimate of the Celony's population is between 1.6 million to 1 million people while private estimates around middle of 1947, gave as high a figure as 2 million for the then population of Hong Kong.
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In 1946 and early 1947 there was a great influx of people, mostly from South China, into the Colony; later on many thousand refugees, self-exiles, business men, etc., came here from Shanghai and North China. High living costs, compared to prices in China, and limited opportunities to earn a steady income, as well as the lack of industrial employment for the bulk of Kwangtung immigrants, slowly reduced the numbers of Chinese newcomers. Although,
Although, by and large, dficial figures in Hong Kong are correct and thus present the situation as it actually is to local and foreign observers, there are bound to occur small inaccuracies in statistics dealing with the
/immigration
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