Hong Kong received about 180,000 applications under its various talent admission programs in the first 10 months of 2024 and nearly 120,000 have been approved, Secretary for Labour and Welfare Chris Sun Yuk-han said Wednesday.

Answering a query at the Legislative Council, Sun said around 75,000 talents and about the same number of dependents have arrived in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region as of October.  

Sun said a total of 34,360 applications were approved under the Top Talent Pass Scheme, 9,423 under the Quality Migrant Admission Scheme, and 21,296 under the Admission Scheme for Mainland Talents and Professionals.

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Under the TTPS, 32,566 approved applications came from the Chinese mainland, 346 from Canada, 303 from the United States, 228 from Australia, 121 from Singapore, and 796 from other countries.

Launched by the HKSAR government in December 2022, TTPS aims to attract the top talent with high income, good academic qualifications and extensive work experience to pursue development in Hong Kong.

Under the QMAS, 9,225 approved applications were from the mainland, 53 from Australia, 40 from Canada, 37 from the US, and 68 from other countries.

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Sun said the Labour and Welfare Bureau implemented on Nov 1 enhancement measures for the talent admission programs, including extending the validity period of the first visas of high-income talents under the TTPS from two years to three years, expanding the list of eligible universities under the program, and improving the criteria and arrangements for the General Points Test under the QMAS.