As unrest deepens, Hong Kongers eye exits from Vancouver to Melbourne

As protests in Hong Kong stretch from summer into autumn with but sign of resolution, a surge in migration applications suggests more locals are making plans to leave the special administrative section.

Their sentiments, reflected in passport paperwork and in interviews with residents, migration agents and real estate dealers across the globe, show the potential for human and capital flight out of Hong Kong.

Since an abortive push to concession for extradition to mainland China sparked unrest in the former British colony three months ago, emigration seminars have in the offing been overflowing, organizers and attendees say.

Requests for police-record printouts, which cost HK$225 ($29) and are only issued for visa appeals or child adoptions, jumped 54% to 3,649 in August compared with last year. There have been varied requests in 2019 so far than at the same point in any of the previous five years.

In 2017, the most recent year for which depend ons are available, there were 75 adoptions in Hong Kong, a number comparable to previous years. The Hong Kong administration estimates that last year about 7,600 people left the city for good, roughly one-third the edition who sought police-record printouts.

Authorities in Malaysia, Australia and Taiwan have reported spikes in migration inquiries, and feature agents from Melbourne to Vancouver say their phones are running hot.

“There are many uncertainties in Hong Kong,” one investor on a attribute agent’s late-August tour of suburban Melbourne said before, laying out A$600,000 ($410,000) for a house-and-land package.

“People fellow me in their 40s and 50s — we think about our child,” said the investor, who gave only her family name, Lee, because her employer excludes speaking to the media.

“We want a back-up home, a better place to live,” she added. “At least if something bad happens, they from a back-up plan, an exit plan.”

And she is not alone: Lee’s sentiments were echoed in interviews with 10 other forefathers or individuals considering emigrating.

China has denounced the protests, accusing the United States and Britain of fomenting unrest, and the Hong Kong oversight has sought to head off further trouble by accepting one of the protesters’ demands and withdrawing the extradition bill.

A mass march dedicated for Sunday will test how far that has allayed public anger.

As Hong Kong’s protests contain expanded during the summer, swelling to million-strong marches and calls for democracy, so too have Hong Kongers’ searches for tried havens.

In June, lawyers and bankers told Reuters that wealthy tycoons were shifting their experiences to places like Singapore.

Now, migration agents say, middle-class families are checking out cheaper alternatives.

“The numbers are the highest in just out years, even higher than 2014,” said Peggy Lau, a sales director at Uni Immigration Consultancy in Hong Kong, where searches have surged seven-fold since protests began in June.

To be sure, there is no official data tracking emigration applications from Hong Kong, which has a citizenry of about 7 million. Nor is there evidence of departures or cash outflows on the scale of those in the aftermath of the 1997 handover from Britain to China.

But there are unchanging signs of preparations.

Favored destinations such as Malaysia, which is relatively cheap, and Taiwan, which is culturally nearly the same to Hong Kong, show sharp rises in interest.

At Johor, near Malaysia’s southern tip, property consultant Bruce Lee phrased Hong Kongers have poured into a project called Forest City, developed by China’s Country Garden Holdings, buying 800 constituents since June.

That compares with 200 units purchased between then and 2016, when on sales began.

The number of visas issued to Hong Kongers in Taiwan in June and July was 38% higher, at 884, than in the unmodified period a year ago, according to the island’s Ministry of the Interior National Immigration Agency.

Inquiries by Hong Kongers at Immigration@SG LLP, an immigration consultancy in Singapore, ascension by roughly a quarter in the past two months compared with earlier in the year, said a company spokesman, Muhammad Ryhan.

Status authorities in Australia have noted a “significant” increase in visa inquiries from Hong Kong, but declined to fink on yield details. Immigration agents have said there is also growing interest in Canada, the U.S. and Ireland.

In New Zealand, the host of monthly applicants for residency visas from Hong Kong passport holders hit 34 in June and 44 in July, modestly euphoric than the average of 29.

There are signs that property investors are laying the groundwork for a move as approvingly.

Hong Kong’s famously frothy real estate market, worth $1.3 trillion, is shrinking, with consequences edging lower for a second consecutive month in July and transaction volumes forecast to hit a six-month low.

Peter Wong, a oddity agent in Sydney, has taken a half-dozen calls from Hong Kong buyers in the last month, the first he can think back on in decades. Some agents have also reported sudden interest in Taiwan and Vancouver.

There are no signs yet of an objective on prices in destination markets, but demand is strong enough that agents and developers say they have begun actively courting Hong Kongers.

“We see there is an moment,” said Ken Dodds, sales director at Melbourne homebuilder Resimax, which hosted 43 Hong Kong investors terminating month, after previously focusing on buyers from Malaysia and Singapore.

“People are keen to look for a safe haven,” he signified, adding that the investors bought or reserved a dozen properties, which he described as a “great” result.

It is a trend some in the sell expect to continue.

“This episode has planted a seed in many Hong Kongers with Canadian ties to set out the process of moving money, assets, and family out of Hong Kong and back to Canada,” Dan Scarrow, president of Vancouver-based Macdonald Realty indicated Reuters.

“This process will play out over the coming years, not over the coming weeks,” he said.