The Quality Migrant Admission Scheme, aimed at luring highly skilled professionals to Hong Kong, attracted 127 qualified applications after the government relaxed restrictions last month.
The applications included 74 people who had earlier been rejected for failing to meet the previous requirements, according to Helen Chan Wing-mui, the Immigration Department's assistant director of visas and policies.
A department spokesman said: 'After the changes to the scheme last month, the department looked at the 74 applications again and re- assessed them.'
Ms Chan said 76 of the 127 applications had been approved in principle after the final assessment by an advisory committee.
The spokesman was unable to reveal how many of the 74 re-assessments were among the 76 successful applicants.
The success rate in the latest batch of applications stood at about 60 per cent, compared with 71 per cent before the rules were eased.