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This Week in AsiaPeople

Hong Kong’s talent exodus to Singapore: can it be reversed and is ‘a new wave of expats’ inbound?

  • Mainland China’s reopening and Hong Kong’s gateway status ensure ‘a new wave of expats to the city’ even if those who left don’t return, insiders say
  • Departees told This Week in Asia they’re ‘at peace’ with the move and aren’t looking back despite Singapore battling inflation and soaring rents

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More than 200,000 residents left Hong Kong between mid-2020 and last summer, escaping prolonged pandemic restrictions that were increasingly out of step with the rest of the world. Photo: AP
Kimberly LimandSu-Lin Tanin Singapore
For Jamie*, a Singaporean expat who left Hong Kong last year, returning home was worth it – even if it cost her “a small fortune”.
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The 32-year-old business owner now lives closer to her family and can afford to rent a two-bedroom condominium apartment in the city state’s east.

“Rent is high here but still not as high as Hong Kong, and apartments are bigger,” she said, adding that she was staying put in Singapore for now – at least partly because her current rental agreement was “locked down”.
Jamie is among the more than 200,000 expats and Hongkongers who left the city between mid-2020 and last summer, escaping prolonged pandemic restrictions that were increasingly out of step with the rest of the world.
Pedestrians with luggage in the Tsim Sha Tsui area of Hong Kong last month. The city still mandates mask wearing outside, three years after the pandemic began. Photo: Bloomberg
Pedestrians with luggage in the Tsim Sha Tsui area of Hong Kong last month. The city still mandates mask wearing outside, three years after the pandemic began. Photo: Bloomberg
Those who spoke to This Week in Asia also cited the chilling effect of the sweeping national security law, enacted by Beijing in 2020 following the chaos of the previous year’s protests, as a reason to leave.
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But since Hong Kong has emerged from its pandemic isolation – dropping hotel quarantine in September followed by the mainland doing away with three years of zero-Covid from December – observers predict those seeking access to Chinese capital will still be drawn in, and foresee “a new wave of expats to the city”.
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