KUALA LUMPUR: There has been no drastic increase in the number of Hong Kong citizens entering Malaysia despite the months of unrest in the territory.
Deputy Home Minister Datuk Mohd Azis Jamman (pix) said only 242 Hong Kong citizens entered Malaysia from Jan 1 to Aug 31 this year.
In comparison, there were 345 visitors from the territory in 2017 and 458 last year, he said in response to a question from Datuk Jalaluddin Alias (BN-Jelubu) at the Dewan Rakyat today.
To a supplementary question from Jalaluddin, Azis dismissed suggestions that participants in Malaysia My Second Home (MM2H) programme who come from countries in crisis could affect the nation’s political stability.
He said that from 2002 to June this year, a total of 14,891 Chinese nationals and 1,295 Hong Kong citizens lived in Malaysia under the MM2H programme.
“Currently, only 44 Hong Kongers are here under the long-stay retirement programme so we don’t see a problem,” he added.
Azis said the government has tightened background checks on those who wish to come to Malaysia under the MM2H programme.
Under the programme, participants are granted a 10-year visa to stay in Malaysia. It was introduced to attract wealthy expatriates and so far more than 40,000 people from 131 countries have participated.
They are mainly from China, followed by Japan, Bangladesh, the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, Korea, Iran and Singapore.
