More top mainland students are to be recruited by local universities, which are having difficulty filling quotas for non-SAR students.
In addition to 450 mainland students funded by the Jockey Club, a further 50 will be arriving under a $20 million sponsorship by the K. K. Ho International Charitable Foundation.
The private fund was launched in June by Charles Ho Kwan-king, son of philanthropist and tobacco tycoon Ho Ying-chie, who died in January.
The extra 50 will help boost the number of foreign students. About 2.7 per cent of students are from outside Hong Kong. Of those, 80 per cent come from the mainland.
The Government raised the quota for foreign students from two per cent to four per cent in 1998. About 45,000 undergraduates attend universities.
But Cheung Man-kwong, representing the education sector in Legco, expressed concern about the high number of mainland students, saying it would interfere with the development of an international atmosphere.
