A renewed focus on helping people find opportunities in Hong Kong should be the city’s response to overseas immigration schemes that draw talent away. Such offers from Australia, Britain and Canada must not disrupt efforts to rebuild confidence in the city.

Australia’s Department of Home Affairs recently said it granted permanent residency to 680 Hong Kong and British National (Overseas) passport holders between March 2023 and February 2024, nearly double the 370 reported for the first year after the scheme started in 2022. Britain and Canada also have created special immigration pathways for Hongkongers following Beijing’s imposition of a national security law on the city in 2020, banning acts of secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces.

A bespoke pathway offered by Britain since 2021 had approved 191,158 Hongkongers as of December 2023. A BN(O) visa allows them to work, study and live in Britain, and they are eligible to apply for citizenship after six years. Under Canada’s “work-to-emigrate” route to residency, about 4,290 Hongkongers had applied and nearly 2,000 were approved as of last August. The nation has the lowest barrier to entry and targets younger people, recent graduates and those who have already studied in the country.

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However, the numbers have not reached the levels some feared when the immigration programmes were first introduced. Hong Kong’s adoption of a new domestic national security law may have recently caused discomfort, but the business community has largely factored in those changes. Arriving workers seem to be reaching a similar conclusion. Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks recently surveyed incoming tech professionals and found they were more concerned about living costs than the security legislation.