Hong Kong's population returns to 7.5 million

Hong Kong is still very fragrant!

Recently, the Census and Statistics Department of the Hong Kong SAR Government released the latest population data of Hong Kong.

At the end of 2023, the provisional population of Hong Kong, China was 7,503,100, an increase of 30,500 or 0.4% compared to 7,472,600 in the same period in 2022.

This is the second time that Hong Kong's population has exceeded the 7.5 million mark since 2019, which can be called a super reversal.

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After 2019, Hong Kong's population returned to 7.5 million

Specifically, there will be a net inflow of 51,700 people from Hong Kong in 2023, including 40,800 from Chinese mainland and 10,800 other Hong Kong residents. In 2023, there will be 21,200 "natural decline" in Hong Kong, including 33,200 births and 54,400 deaths.

Hong Kong's population peaked at 7,507,900 in mid-2019, but continued to grow negatively for the next three years, reaching a rock bottom of 7,346,100 in mid-2022.

This means that from 2019 to 2022, Hong Kong's population has decreased by 161,800 people, and the following is the population growth of Hong Kong in recent years

Photo: Hong Kong Commercial Daily

As shown above, from mid-2022, Hong Kong's population began to stop falling and rebound, with a net increase of about 190,000 people in one year, which is very impressive.

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Last year, 240,000 people applied to enter Hong Kong, and 140,000 were approved

Why did Hong Kong's population suddenly skyrocket?

The analysis believes that there are two factors, one is the epidemic factor, before 2022, due to the epidemic control, many Hong Kong people who stayed abroad could not come back, and it was not until the end of 2022 that they gradually returned to normal, and these people returned to Hong Kong one after another, promoting the rapid recovery of Hong Kong's population.

Another factor is the relaxed talent policy, as we all know, Hong Kong has launched a "war for talent" in the past two years, launched the "Talent Pass", restarted the "Investor Admission Scheme", and relaxed the quota control for talents, professionals and study abroad.

Last year, more than 240,000 people applied to enter Hong Kong through various talent introduction schemes, of which more than 140,000 were approved, which far exceeded the talent introduction target set by Hong Kong at the end of 2022 (35,000 per year).

The Quality Talent Program, for example, was introduced as early as 2006, but in the past, the global quota of 1,000 students per year was previously limited, and the average approval rate was only 15%. By 2020, the number of places will increase to 2,000 each year, and in 2022, the number of places will increase to 4,000.

By 2023-2024, the "Quality Migrant Scheme" will be directly open-ended, and a total of 80,207 applications will be received in 2023, about five times the total number of applications in 2022, of which a total of 12,969 applications will be approved, which is more than 10 times the average annual quota before 2020.

As for the new "TTP" in 2023, it has attracted 62,000 applications in the past year, and about 49,000 have been approved.

It is understood that there are a total of 12 mainland universities in the list of Hong Kong's "TTPS" universities, namely:

Tsinghua University, Peking University, Fudan University, Zhejiang University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, University of Science and Technology of China, Sun Yat-sen University, Nanjing University, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan University, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Harbin Institute of Technology.

In other words, those who have graduated from these 12 universities with a bachelor's degree can directly apply for the Hong Kong TTPS.

On the one hand, among the 140,000 people approved last year, a considerable number of them have not yet been included in Hong Kong.

On the other hand, Hong Kong's relaxed talent policy is still attracting more talents to work, study and live in Hong Kong.

In general, in the past few years, Hong Kong has indeed faced greater pressure from population outflow, but with the introduction of talent policies, a large number of new people have rapidly poured into Hong Kong, indicating that Hong Kong's attractiveness is still huge.

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Can I buy a house in Hong Kong?

Finally, let's talk about the Hong Kong property market, in 2023, the Hong Kong government will gradually relax the control of the property market, and non-permanent residents who buy a house in Hong Kong used to have to pay 30% tax, but now they only need to pay 15%, and if they get Hong Kong permanent resident status through the talent introduction program, they only need to pay about 3%-4.25%.

In October 2023, the Hong Kong government launched another "exemption before levy". To put it simply, there is no tax on non-permanent residence to buy a house in Hong Kong (BSD + NRSD for new homes), and if you do not become a permanent resident after 7 years, you have to make up the tax (7 years + 2 years buffer period).

It can be seen that in order to attract people from other places to buy houses in Hong Kong, the Hong Kong government has given very large discounts.

In the past two years, Hong Kong's housing prices have generally fallen by about 20%~30%, and the market as a whole is relatively cold, but the rent-to-sale ratio can basically reach 3%, if this rent-to-sale ratio can be stabilized, so the bubble of Hong Kong's housing prices is actually not as big as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen.

In my previous article, "3%, the magic number!, it's the ultimate home price destination", I made the point that when a house has a rent-to-sale ratio of 3%, we can consider it to be a safe line.

3% is a magic number. Not only Hong Kong, but also international metropolises such as New York, London, and Tokyo, after deducting holding costs, the rent-to-sale ratio is surprisingly consistent, at around 3%.

According to a study by economist Ren Zeping, after deducting the cost of ownership (property tax, property fee, etc.), the rent-to-sale ratio in New York, London and central Tokyo is 3.1%, 2.8% and 2.5% respectively, all fluctuating around 3%.

What does this mean? In a mature real estate market, the price of a house is about 33 times the annual rent.