Coronavirus: Hong Kong leader concedes anti-pandemic measures contributed to brain drain, ‘fully understands’ anxiety of diplomats, business delegates
- Carrie Lam reveals she had a virtual meeting with diplomats and representatives of the business community on Tuesday to explain Hong Kong’s latest situation, respond to their worries
- City leader also suggests, for the first time, it is “hard to tell” whether resuming quarantine-free travel with mainland should be prioritised over opening up to the rest of the world
Stringent anti-pandemic restrictions have contributed to the exit of business talent, Hong Kong’s leader has conceded, a day after she was grilled by diplomats and industry representatives expressing frustration over the curbs.
Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor also suggested, for the first time, that it was “hard to tell” whether resuming quarantine-free travel with mainland China should be prioritised over opening up to the rest of the world, as both were equally important.
“We hope to resume personnel exchanges with the mainland and overseas at the same time. It is hard to tell which comes first but it should be launched gradually depending on the actual situation,” Lam said on Wednesday in an apparent shift from a previous stance where she had repeatedly stressed reopening the border with the mainland as a top priority.
Hours after Lam’s press conference, Xia Baolong, director of the State Council’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, urged the Hong Kong government to “further step up to shoulder the main responsibility, and to use well the support provided by the central government,” according to pro-China Bauhinia magazine.
Xia urged the government to implement strict measures to prevent a rebound in infections and do its best to reduce the number of deaths and serious cases. The support provided to help Hong Kong fight a fifth wave of Covid-19 infections was an integral part of the overall national plan on epidemic prevention and control, he added.
Business mogul Allan Zeman said Lam’s remarks would help ease the international community’s concerns after complaints of being left out due to the tough travel curbs.
The city confirmed 6,981 new coronavirus infections on Wednesday, the fifth consecutive day the daily caseload was below the 10,000 mark.
Hong Kong’s overall tally of confirmed cases since the start of the pandemic stands at 1,150,769, while the total number of related deaths has reached 7,706.
Lam revealed she had a virtual meeting with more than 130 diplomats and representatives of the business community on Tuesday where she sought to explain Hong Kong’s latest situation and respond to their worries.
“I fully understand their anxiety and concerns,” she said. “In recent months, I heard … talent and business executives have left the city … Maybe this is an indisputable fact, but we will try our best to keep our traditional advantage.”
Lam said she did not have concrete figures on how many professionals, particularly foreign ones, had left the city, but noted that others had told her that “people in their companies were gone”, and that “admission rates in some international schools have dropped”.
“These are voices and situations that the government needs to hear and understand,” she added, but insisted the city remained an attractive place for talent, as reflected by the increase in quota to 4,000 for the Quality Migrant Admission Scheme last year.
A recent survey of 260 executives by the European Chamber of Commerce showed that nearly half of all European businesses in the city were considering moving elsewhere next year.
Among the firms planning to leave, a quarter said they would fully relocate in the next 12 months, while 24 per cent planned to move at least partially.
Many attendees at the Tuesday meeting, including some European diplomats, bombarded Lam with complaints and criticisms, sources said.
A key request that many attendees told Lam – as a substantial start to addressing their grievances – was to allow those flying in to quarantine at home if they tested negative on arrival instead of putting them into hotel isolation, a source said.
On this point, Lam said: “We explained to them that it is impossible at this moment, as there are risks from these overseas arrivals returning from countries that have already lifted most of their restrictions.
“Some said our border measures were too harsh as compared with their countries, which no longer required quarantine or compulsory mask-wearing. Hong Kong is far from lifting our measures like these countries, nor will we ‘lie flat’ and do nothing.”
Lam noted that during her own meeting, business representatives had asked about plans for reopening the border with the mainland and arrangements for international schools when in-person classes resumed.
Lam first hinted at the government’s plans to ease some of its tough pandemic restrictions on March 17, acknowledging that “some of our financial institutions are losing patience about the isolated status of Hong Kong”.
Days later, she revealed the government would lift flight bans on nine high-risk countries starting from April 1 to allow Hong Kong residents to return, while halving the quarantine period for all arrivals to the city from two weeks to one. She also laid out plans for a phased relaxation later that month of local social-distancing measures that have taken a heavy toll on businesses.
Lam said on Wednesday final preparations at the airport were being made to ensure border measures were “watertight”, as the city was expecting about 2,000 arrivals on April 1, an increase from the previous 200 to 300 per day.
Lam acknowledged that the strict anti-pandemic regime since January would inevitably “affect the confidence of foreign investors temporarily”, but suggested it had been necessary to prevent the city from “serving as a loophole for imported cases that will affect Hong Kong and the mainland”.
In the long run, she added, the city still had the advantage of being a financial hub with the support of the central government.
“Hong Kong is still a place where [overseas investors] can make money,” Lam said.
Hong Kong to double fine for breaching Covid quarantine orders to HK$10,000
Speaking to the Post, Zeman, chief of the Lan Kwai Fong Group, called for a further lifting of travel restrictions to allow business travellers to enter the city in the near future.
“Since the city is gradually lifting some of the social-distancing measures … from April 21, I believe the restrictions imposed on business travellers could ease step by step too, so most of them would come back by June,” he said.
On the possible shift in strategy on border reopening, Zeman said he believed Lam had no choice but to face the reality that businesspeople were leaving, and that it was important for the city to plan for resuming international travel.
“Of course the Chinese borders are very important, but by the same token we cannot take our eye off [from the international community], otherwise we are losing everything to Singapore, Dubai and other places,” he said.
“For months, Lam only talked about resuming travel with mainland China, while there was no mention of international travel … Many international businesses felt left out and probably Lam realised this.”
Mainland traditional medicine specialists to advise Hong Kong on Covid approach
Bernard Chan, convenor of the Executive Council, Lam’s de facto cabinet, said earlier this month resuming cross-border travel with the mainland had become an unrealistic goal in the immediate term given the city’s fifth Covid-19 wave.
“While it’s unrealistic to reopen our border with the mainland, we need to spell out a road map to the international community when we would relax restrictions on travellers,” he told the Post.
Sources said on Tuesday Lam had called pro-Beijing politicians to help persuade mainland officials to resume quarantine-free cross-border travel after the current outbreak subsided.
Asked yet again on Wednesday whether she would run for re-election in the May 8 chief executive race, whose nomination period begins on Sunday, Lam once more demurred, saying only that her “sole duty is fighting against the pandemic”.
.
.
