The Chinese proverb “Dripping water wears away stone” suggests that perseverance eventually delivers results that no single dramatic gesture ever could. That is precisely how Hong Kong’s latest comeback story has unfolded: not through a single headline-grabbing announcement but through the steady, cumulative return of thousands of professionals who left during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to a recent Bloomberg feature, Hong Kong’s foreign population is being rebuilt one relocation decision at a time as expatriates increasingly choose the city, thanks to its career prospects, low taxes, and quality of life.
Official figures back this up. Hong Kong approved 31,278 employment visas for foreign nationals last year, more than double the number recorded five years earlier, with Japan, South Korea, and the United Kingdom among the largest sources of applicants. Visas issued to financial services professionals alone rose by 17 percent year-on-year, reaching their highest level since 2022.
For a city that endured relentless foreign commentary about an “expat exodus” in recent years, and which has since had to fend off repeated predictions of its irreversible “decline”, this rebound is more than a statistic. It is a rebuttal, delivered not through argument but through the decisions of thousands of individuals voting with their feet.
The reasoning behind these individual decisions is instructive. Several of the returning professionals cited in the Bloomberg feature said they had weighed Hong Kong against alternatives such as Dubai, and concluded that Hong Kong offers stronger long-term appeal, particularly given the volatile geopolitical situation in the Middle East over the past couple of years. That is a telling comparison. Hong Kong is often discussed, especially in Western media, as though it were competing purely against Singapore, when in fact its real competitive set is far wider, and includes cities whose own stability cannot be taken for granted. Hong Kong’s combination of the rule of law, a simple and low-tax system, deep capital markets and proximity to the Chinese mainland looks less like a fragile advantage but more like a durable one that professionals are actively choosing.
The drivers of the comeback are not mysterious. Hong Kong’s capital markets have roared back to life. The SAR government has also tabled legislation to remove taxes on performance-linked income for fund managers, sharpening the city’s edge in attracting asset-management talent. Hong Kong has, meanwhile, reclaimed its position as the world’s largest booking center for offshore wealth, overtaking Switzerland, according to Boston Consulting Group’s latest Global Wealth Report, a milestone reinforcing Hong Kong’s position.
Global financial institutions are responding accordingly. Several major global financial institutions are relocating senior executives to Hong Kong. When global banks move senior decision-makers to a city, they are making a long-term bet on where business will actually get done, and increasingly, that bet is being placed on Hong Kong rather than merely hedged across the region. This shift is not confined to bankers making headline moves. Recruiters report growing interest among senior banking professionals overseas in managing-director roles in Hong Kong, while Grade A office occupancy continues to strengthen as asset managers sign long-term leases. None of this happens by accident; it happens because the underlying fundamentals of Hong Kong, as a financial center, as a listing venue and as a base for regional decision-making, have strengthened.
This would not have been possible without the groundwork laid by proactive policies over the past few years. Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu has repeatedly identified attracting and retaining talent as a central priority, from expanding the list of universities covered under the Top Talent Pass Scheme to granting longer visas to high-income professionals. The results are becoming visible in the numbers: Hong Kong’s ranking in the Swiss-based IMD World Talent Ranking climbed to fourth place globally last year, from ninth the year before, its highest-ever position and the best in Asia. That kind of movement in a closely watched, methodologically rigorous ranking does not happen without deliberate, sustained policy effort, and it is precisely that kind of effort that gives today’s expat comeback its staying power, rather than making it a one-off rebound.
This talent push is, in turn, inseparable from Hong Kong’s broader integration with the national development agenda. Lee is leading a task force to formulate the city’s first five-year development blueprint aligned with the country’s 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30), an initiative that reinforces Hong Kong’s role as a financial center, an innovation powerhouse, and a superconnector between the mainland and international capital. As the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area reinforces its integration, and as the Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Guangzhou cluster consolidates its position as the world’s top-ranked innovation cluster, Hong Kong’s ability to attract global professionals becomes not just a local labor-market story but a piece of national strategy.
The rankings tell a consistent story. Hong Kong retained third place in the latest Global Financial Centres Index, topping the fintech sub-ranking ahead of Shenzhen, New York, Singapore, and London. Five Hong Kong universities now sit among the world’s top 100 in the QS World University Rankings, with the University of Hong Kong climbing to 11th globally, the highest position ever achieved by a Chinese university. The city also jumped five places in QS’ Best Student Cities ranking, driven largely by an improved affordability score. Taken together, these are not isolated accolades; they describe an ecosystem, spanning finance, education, and innovation, that reinforces itself and makes Hong Kong harder to overlook for the kind of professional weighing up where to build his or her career.
The comeback is visible on the ground, too, not only in visa data and rankings. Rents in expat-favored neighborhoods such as Mid-Levels East and The Peak rose by roughly 14 percent and 13 percent respectively in June, outpacing the citywide average. International-school enrollment has grown by around 10 percent over three years, while the supply of school places has barely kept pace, leaving many of the city’s top international schools with yearlong waiting lists. These are the sort of unglamorous, practical signals, housing demand, school places, that are far harder to manufacture through policy alone, and far more convincing than any press release.
However, it would be a mistake to read this simply as a return to the pre-pandemic status quo. Over the past three years, roughly three-quarters of approvals under Hong Kong’s various talent programs have gone to mainland professionals, while overseas applicants increasingly need niche specialist expertise, language skills, or internal corporate transfers to secure roles. Hong Kong’s talent market has become more selective, not less competitive, a sign of a maturing ecosystem rather than a simple reopening.
For a city that spent the pandemic years fending off Western headlines about its “decline”, the return of thousands of professionals, backed by hard numbers on visas, rents, rankings, and institutional investment, is the clearest possible answer. Hong Kong is not “over”; it never was. It is simply doing what it has always done best: adapting, competing, and reasserting its role as one of the world’s most important financial centers, a magnet for global talent, and an indispensable bridge between the mainland and the rest of the world.
The author is a fintech adviser, a researcher and a former business analyst for a Hong Kong publicly listed company.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
