Hong Kong to woo overseas talent to ease labor crunch
Hong Kong will be actively courting overseas talents to the city, even as it scraps a scheme that gives mainland investors residency rights.
The dual approach represents a balancing act between competing tensions. While Hong Kong is contending with an ageing population and a shrinking workforce, it has also seen the rise of anti-mainland sentiment, with Chinese investors blamed for rising property prices and competition for resources.
Chief executive Leung Chun Ying said that the city has experienced “overly abundant” capital such as in the property market.
“What we want to attract are talents, not just capital,” he said.
In his policy address yesterday, Leung announced measures aimed at getting second-generation Hong Kong emigrants to return to their parents’ homeland.
It is also looking at drawing up a “talent list” to reach out to skilled workers who can ease the labor crunch in certain sectors. A government source says these range from IT and innovation to financial services – the same people Singapore is eyeing.
Skilled overseas workers who have entered Hong Kong under key existing schemes now number fewer than 100,000, or 1.4 per cent, of the population of 7.2 million.
Government officials say there is no target set for increasing the number. But the pilot program to attract children of Chinese Hong Kongers will have a pool of “hundreds of thousands” to work with. Many left in the 1980s shortly before the 1997 handover from British to Chinese rule.
In much of his first policy address since the Occupy movement, Leung sought to focus attention on the need for the city to remain competitive, as well as bread-and-butter issues like housing.
In an unprecedented departure, he kicked off what is usually a nuts-and-bolts speech with strong words and took swipes at pro-democracy activists and students who tried to agitate for greater rights to directly elect their chief executive. Over 79 days from late September to last month, they occupied major roads in the city.
“As we pursue democracy, we should act in accordance with the law, or Hong Kong will degenerate into anarchy,” he warned.
Some have underestimated the importance of Hong Kong’s economic growth, he said. “This calls for vigilance.”
He also criticized those who “fail to properly understand the relationship” between Hong Kong and the central government. There will be no concessions to the protesters’ demands, he asserted, reiterating a call for Hong Kong legislators to pass constitutional reform under the contentious framework laid out by Beijing last August that places strict strictures on who can eventually run for election.
Leung, instead, sought to mollify those whose concerns have to do with bread-and-butter issues, the “most critical” of which is housing. The chief executive, who during his 2012 campaign pledged to solve the city’s problem of boasting the world’s most unaffordable homes, said more will be done to find land and build housing.
To alleviate poverty, a public consultation on retirement protection measures including universal pension will be carried out.
Leung told reporters: “It is a difficult, longstanding issue but this government is willing to take up the challenge.”
