ENG-1989 — Page 402

POPULATION AND IMMIGRATION

The 1986 By-Census showed that 59.3 per cent of the people were born in Hong Kong and most have their family origins in Guangdong Province. People with their origins in Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Macau and adjacent places form the largest community, followed by the Siyi group and the Chaozhou group. The remaining portion of the Chinese population in Hong Kong has origins in other parts of Guangdong and other provinces of China.

Immigration Department

The work of the Immigration Department falls into two main streams, controlling people moving into and out of Hong Kong, and providing travel documents and registration facilities for local residents. The work embraces such diverse fields as the issue of travel documents, visas and identity cards, naturalisation, and the registration of births, deaths and marriages. Much effort also goes into the detection and prosecution of those who breach the immigration laws and the repatriation of those who have entered Hong Kong illegally.

Immigration policies are framed to limit permanent population growth, thus maintaining the stability and prosperity of the local community, and to control the entry of foreign workers, thus protecting the local labour force from unfair competition. Every effort is also made to streamline immigration procedures for Hong Kong residents, tourists and businessmen and to prevent the entry of undesirable persons and the departure of persons wanted for criminal offences, thereby contributing to the internal security and law and order of Hong Kong.

Immigration Control

Passenger traffic decreased slightly during the year as a result of the events in China. The total number of passengers moving into and out of Hong Kong was 58.2 million, a moderate decrease of 3.3 per cent compared with 60.2 million in 1988. Movements to and from China dropped by 9.5 per cent, from 36.9 million in 1988 to 33.4 million in 1989. The number of visitors from Taiwan remained steady at about 1.2 million. However, passenger traffic to and from Macau increased from 12 million in 1988 to 12.4 million in 1989.

During the year, a total of 250 000 residents of China visited Hong Kong, with 130 000 travelling individually and 120 000 travelling in groups, an increase of 10.4 per cent compared with 230 000 in 1988.

The airport extension project was completed in February 1989. This provided 68 additional immigration counters and enhanced its passenger clearance capacity. To cope with the increasing vehicular traffic to and from China, the new Lok Ma Chau border crossing point, with 14 vehicle examination kiosks and 28 passenger examination counters, was commissioned on December 29, 1989.

The Easy Travel Scheme

Computerisation of immigration control has been fully implemented at all control points. Known as the Easy Travel Scheme, it is designed to streamline and speed up passenger clearance processes at control points and activities in other areas. It has also contributed to the strengthening of immigration control and a higher degree of efficiency.

Hong Kong residents travelling with their Hong Kong identity cards are no longer required to complete arrival and departure cards. Most of them benefit further by not having to produce their travel documents for Hong Kong immigration examination.

345