Hong Kong Emigration
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Background
1.
Brigadier Hickey of the Hong Kong Association has said that the major firms are no longer as worried as they used to be about the" Brain Drain". A recent report in the Toronto Star stated that although there had been an increase of 18% in the number of immigrant visas for Canada issued in 1991 over the previous year, this figure apparently represented applications made up to two years previously. In fact the number of applications lodged with the Canadian High
Commission in Hong Kong in 1991 had fallen by 49%.
2. The Canadians say that there is still much interest in
emigrating to Canada as evidenced by the 16% increase in the pre-application questionaires received by their Commission
in 1991. They believe that the fall in the number of applications was probably due to fewer people in the skilled worker category being able to qualify. Hearsay evidence, however, is that recession in target countries has discouraged emigration generally. (But Mr Heap has told us
that perhaps in reaction to recession elsewhere
general level of confidence in Hong Kong is higher than for
some years.
3.
the
Other posts which have been consulted confirm this
trend. The Australians also report a fall in the number of applications 13% in 1990/91 over the previous FY year.
The Americans said that emigration to the US is largely family-related. Except for a surge in 1989/90, the number of applications for immigration has been quite stable over
the past few years. With large backlogs of applications waiting to be processed, both the Americans and Australians
expect the level of emigration from Hong Kong to remain constant for the next few years.
JM1ACI/1
SLM
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