ENG-1966 — Page 222

11

Immigration and Tourism

THE pressure of work on the Immigration Department has continued unabated. The airport, Chinese and harbour sections were most affected. During the year the department moved to more spacious accommodation located, as before, in the central district. An additional sub-office has been opened in Kowloon. The total recorded movement during 1966 was 4,994,185, consisting of 2,490,303 arrivals and 2,503,882 departures. This compares with a total of 4,218,297 in 1965. The main lines of movement were between Hong Kong and Macau and, to a lesser degree, Hong Kong and China. Illegal immigration, although much reduced from the figures of previous years, continued to present a problem.

The unsettled political climate in South-East Asia generally caused many more Chinese than usual to seek entry into Hong Kong and to send their children to the Colony for education. The demand for travel documents from Hong Kong residents remained undiminished. The usual arrangements were made to enable children at school in China and Macau to visit their parents in Hong Kong for Chinese New Year and summer holidays. The number of students going abroad to study, primarily in Britain and Canada, showed an increase, reflected in the volume of work in the British and Commonwealth section with regard to the issue of both passports and entry certificates for Britain. There was also an increase in the number of persons being granted naturalization as British subjects who subsequently applied for passports. A special section has been set up to deal with applications for naturalization, and although flooded with an unexpected increase in applications the revised processing system has proved very effective.

The Director of Immigration processes travel applications and deals with citizenship problems on behalf of various Commonwealth countries not otherwise represented in Hong Kong, and the number of visa applications for these territories also increased considerably