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Opinion | Hong Kong needs to attract a global talent pool, not just more Chinese
- Tensions may have made Hong Kong less attractive to Americans, British and Australians but there is still the rest of Europe and Asia
- To develop as a global business hub, Hong Kong needs to not have just diverse talent, but also stem the brain drain and encourage investments
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Over the last three years, many professionals have left Hong Kong for Singapore, Britain and elsewhere. To replenish the pool, Hong Kong launched a scheme last December to attract top talent with rich work experience and solid academic qualifications from all over the world.
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The scheme has proved effective in attracting Chinese applicants, whether from the mainland or elsewhere. But it will take an extra effort to find a diverse pool of talent beyond China to help return Hong Kong to being the global business hub envisioned by Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu.
Hong Kong’s population is ageing and this has been made worse by the departures of tens of thousands of young residents – most of those who applied for the British National (Overseas) visa scheme, for example, were aged 44 years or younger.
As Hong Kong reopens after lifting all Covid-19 restrictions, including the face mask mandate earlier this month, it is time to pull out all the stops to retain local talent, attract foreign ones, and encourage both local and foreign investments.
As of mid-February, the Top Talent Pass Scheme, designed to attract foreign top earners or recent top graduates, has received 10,810 applications. Of these, half are recent graduates from the world’s top 100 universities and a sixth comprised high earners.
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But two-thirds of the successful 7,700 applicants are from the mainland and up to 95 per cent of the rest are thought to be Chinese nationals living overseas.
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