TC Li

Opinion | Brain drain? Hong Kong should develop potential of ethnic minorities

Empowering these individuals can help them to break the vicious circle of poverty, and provide a ready pool of talent to advance the city’s socioeconomic development

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Chungking Mansions in Tsim Sha Tsui on October 25, 2019. We need to see members of Hong Kong’s ethnic minority community as tomorrow’s leaders, who need more equitable access to education and decent career options. Photo: Nora Tam

TC Li

Published: 9:30am, 24 Nov 2023Updated: 10:03am, 24 Nov 2023

As the government ramps up efforts to attract talent by establishing the Hong Kong Talent Engage office, it must not overlook the city’s ethnic minorities – a local talent pool and a potential solution to our brain drain and low birth rate.

Acknowledged in Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu’s latest policy address as “an integral part of Hong Kong”, ethnic minority groups have seen their population grow by 37 per cent from 2011-2021. As part of the local labour force, they can help to tackle Hong Kong’s brain drain. Young people from ethnic minority groups can also be involved in shaping government policies to build a more inclusive society.

There are various benefits to empowering these individuals, one being poverty alleviation. Close to one in five lived in poverty in 2016 (the last time the government conducted any official census survey on the ethnic minority population). And while 50.3 per cent of the general population was classed as working-poor, the percentage among South Asians was a staggering 80 per cent.

For too long, ethnic minorities have been seen and treated as a helpless group trapped in intergenerational poverty. Little has been done to enable them to break the vicious circle of poverty.

To tell a better Hong Kong story, we need to stop seeing ethnic minority individuals as “beneficiary groups”, whose integration into society and whose flourishing as individuals and communities will be fulfilled simply through language classes, translation services or fun days out at Disneyland.

We need to see them as tomorrow’s leaders, who need more equitable access to education, decent career options, business networks and other channels to showcase their work and aspirations for a diverse, inclusive and equitable Hong Kong.