Hong Kong’s population kept falling at a record pace over the past 12 months, as people left the territory in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and as a new National Security Law curtailed protest and dissent.
There was an outflow of 89,200 residents in the year that ended in June, leaving Hong Kong’s population at about 7.39 million people, Hong Kong government data released on Thursday showed.
That maintains the 1.2 percent rate of population decline set at the end of last year, the biggest drop in at least six decades for the territory.
Photo: AFP
“Concern over the National Security Law has played a major role in driving the latest wave of migration of local residents, especially for young families, as well as expats who chose to leave the city,” said Tommy Wu (胡東安), lead economist at Oxford Economics in Hong Kong.
The pandemic also had a key effect on cross-border movements and migration to Hong Kong, Wu said.
Hong Kong has had only two bouts of population decline since 1961. Both came amid political unrest and disease, including when the overall population shrank by 0.2 percent amid the outbreak of SARS and protests against an earlier security law in 2002 and 2003.
The recent declines have been sharper, amid a historic recession spurred by the pandemic and political protests that intensified in June 2019.
Last year, mainland China imposed its own security law on the former British colony, raising questions about the “one country, two systems” framework that had underpinned its success as a financial center.
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