An investment immigration law firm in Hong Kong says its number of clients has tripled in the past two years as more and more young families take an interest in uprooting from the city.

Hongkongers’ desire to move abroad had been rising since 2019, Harvey Law Group partner Jean-François Harvey said.

The group had observed three recent waves of migration, which were noticeable after citywide mass protests in 2019, amid the pandemic and following the enactment of national security laws in 2020, Harvey said.

Canada’s Start-up Visa Program, the United Kingdom’s British National (Overseas) visa route and the Australia Significant Investor Visa 188C were the most popular among the Hong Kong clients, he said.

Their new customers tended to be families in which the parents were in their 40s and the children were under 10, he said.

Canada launched a lifeboat program for Hongkongers early this month that allowed them to apply for a three-year open work permit. Last week, the country added two permanent residency pathways for Hongkongers who were fresh graduates in Canada or had Canadian work experience.

Polly Ho, a registered foreign lawyer under the Harvey group, said Hongkongers could use the open work permit to look for jobs within three years and capitalize on the new routes to obtain permanent residency more quickly.

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