For many years, Hong Kong has been a financial metropolis in Asia. But slowing growth and political changes mean that the region has lost its appeal – and many are moving away. Last year, the city lost one in a hundred inhabitants.
One of those now leaving the city is Stanley Chan.
"Many relatives and friends have already left. To the UK, Taiwan and Canada," he says.
No growth since 2017
Hong Kong has been one of the world's most important financial centers. But for the second year in a row, Hong Kong had negative growth in 2022, 3.5 percent, which means that Hong Kong has not had growth since 2017. At the same time, Hong Kong's population fell by just over one percent in both 2021 and 2022.
"I've eaten many, many farewell dinners, lunches and breakfasts," he says. We haven't cooked at home at all for the past month. Maybe the occasional breakfast only.
Analyst: "Hard to see a brighter future"
Those who move appear to be people with relatively high incomes, and with children of school age and younger. There are no official figures to describe the emigrants' profiles, but the changes are noticeable in schools, which have fewer students, and in record withdrawals from the state pension fund MPF, where Hong Kong Chinese have their pension money, and which they also take with them when they leave Hong Kong.
"It's hard to see a bright future for Hong Kong," says analyst and author Simon Cartledge. They are struggling to find new ways to grow economically.
In 2018 and 2019, hundreds of thousands of people protested on the streets of Hong Kong. It began with protests against a law that would make it easier to extradite Hong Kong citizens to mainland China, but turned into broader dissatisfaction with the government in Beijing, and opposition to reduced self-determination for Hong Kong vis-à-vis Beijing.
Watch Stanley Chan talk about his and his friends' move in the video above.