HONG KONG: Hong Kong’s population was 7,503,100 at the end of 2023, up 0.4 percent from end-2022, the Census and Statistics Department announced on Tuesday.
According to a report by China Daily, the government has primarily attributed the rise in population to a net inflow of 51,700 residents from Hong Kong during the specified period. Among them, 40,800 were one-way permit holders, while the remaining 10,800 were other Hong Kong residents.
There were 33,200 births and 54,400 deaths, resulting in a natural population decrease of 21,200, according to the provisional estimate by the department.
The special administrative region government pointed out that the population registered an increase for the second consecutive year since normalcy resumed in Hong Kong.
‘Many Hong Kong residents who stayed abroad during the epidemic have returned to Hong Kong throughout 2023,’ a government spokesman said in a statement.
In the second half of 2023, there was still considerable inflow of Hong Kong permanent residents,
the government explained.
‘Attributable also to the successive admission of mainland and overseas persons through various schemes into Hong Kong, the year-end population for 2023 was higher than that for the preceding year,’ it added.
The number of usual residents – permanent residents who have stayed in the city for at least three months during the six months before or during the six months after the reference time-point; and non-permanent residents who are in the SAR at the reference time-point – was 7,228,600, while there were 274,500 mobile residents.
Source: Emirates News Agency