More Hong Kongers purchased real estate in Taiwan last year than other foreigners, Ministry of the Interior statistics showed.
The ministry attributed the spike to a proposed extradition law that the Hong Kong government submitted last year, which would have allowed suspects to be sent to China and other nations, which sparked mass protests that are continuing.
The rate of purchases last year by Hong Kong natural and juridical persons stood at 40 and 60 percent respectively, with building area purchased by both standing at 47.41 percent and 52.59 percent respectively, ministry data showed.
Photo: Tyrone Siu, Reuters
Department of Land Administration statistics showed that Hong Kongers purchased 11,200 ping (37,025m2) in total land area, a new high for Hong Kongers’ real estate purchases.
The British Virgin Islands were second with 3,102 ping, with Belize in third with 2,210 ping, Malaysia with 1,358 ping and US nationals or companies in fifth place with 1,185 ping, the statistics showed.
Hong Kongers’ land area purchases exceed those of other countries by 1.43 times, the statistics showed.
In terms of building area, Hong Kongers purchased 48,000 ping, the British Cayman Islands nearly 20,000 ping, the Virgin Islands about 9,600 ping, the US nearly 8,000 ping and Malaysia more than 5,300 ping, the data showed.
The department said that purchases from the Virgin and Cayman islands were made through juridical persons.
Realtors in the know said that many Taiwanese companies have established subsidiary firms in the Virgin and Cayman islands, so the actual purchasers could be Taiwanese companies using a different name.
The difference between those purchases and those made by natural and juridical persons from Hong Kong is that the former are making investments while the latter are considering moving to Taiwan, they said.
Sinyi Realty corporate realty research project manager Tseng Ching-te (曾敬德) said statistics show that the spike in Hong Konger purchases is due to similar living habits and lack of a communications barrier.
The ongoing difficulties in Hong Kong are another reason, with retirees in the majority of those purchasing realty in Taiwan, he said.
National Immigration Agency data showed that there were about 2,000 applications from Hong Kongers for temporary residence before the 2008 financial crisis, but the numbers grew from about 4,574 in early 2014 to 7,506 after the pro-democracy “Umbrella movement” in Hong Kong later that year — a 64 percent increase.
REPro Knight Frank Taiwan Research and Consultancy head Andy Huang (黃舒衛) said there is a clear trend of Hong Kongers investing in Taiwan for political and social reasons.
Regardless of investment, immigration or realty purchasing, or culturally related issues such as culture, Hong Kongers view Taiwan favorably and in an attractive light, he said.
Should Taiwan become more internationalized and offer more jobs, there could be an even bigger influx of Hong Kong capital, he said.
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
US President Donald Trump said "it’s up to" Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) what China does on Taiwan, but that he would be "very unhappy" with a change in the "status quo," the New York Times said in an interview published yesterday. Xi "considers it to be a part of China, and that’s up to him what he’s going to be doing," Trump told the newspaper on Wednesday. "But I’ve expressed to him that I would be very unhappy if he did that, and I don’t think he’ll do that," he added. "I hope he doesn’t do that." Trump made the comments in
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
RSS