Let Vietnamese citizens work in Hong Kong as domestic helpers, consul general says
Vietnamese Consul General Hoang Chi Trung is lobbying the government to allow his compatriots to gain work visas as foreign domestic helpers
Vietnam is lobbying Hong Kong to allow its citizens to work as domestic helpers in the city, the country's top diplomat here has revealed, saying he hopes it will do so within a year or two.
Hoang Chi Trung, Vietnam's consul general in Hong Kong and Macau, said he has talked to officials from the Labour Department and Immigration Department about letting Vietnamese people work as helpers in the city several times since he took up the top post last year.
"I have told them on several occasions that Vietnam is now different. We have very good economy for the last 30 years. People don't come and [become] refugees anymore," Trung said in an interview.
At present, the Hong Kong government does not allow people from Vietnam, mainland China, Macau, Taiwan, Afghanistan, Cambodia, Cuba, Laos, North Korea or Nepal to work as domestic helpers in the city.
Trung said he believed the Hong Kong government had the ban in place because of the problems Vietnamese refugees brought in the 1970s and 1980s.
During those years, about a quarter of a million Vietnamese reportedly fled the country to Hong Kong after the Vietnam war. Riots became common. In 1995, thousands of Vietnamese refugees rioted while being transferred from one camp to another in the city, injuring some 200 police and refugees.
It took years for the refugees to be sent to the US, Australia, Europe, or be repatriated to Vietnam, Trung said. "That's why [Hong Kong officials] are careful about giving employment visas to Vietnamese."
When he told the officials Hong Kong should lift the ban, the officials did not reject him.
"They did not say no. But they said they need more time to coordinate among themselves and so on. But I know that they are still afraid of people coming here and not going home," he added.
He said as Hong Kong negotiated with Association of Southeast Asian Nations countries over a free-trade pact, which he expects to be signed this year or next, it can't afford to treat different Asean countries differently.
"If you allow Indonesians and Filipinos here, and you know, there are hundreds of thousands … I hope that in one or two years' time Hong Kong will reconsider this policy and will allow our people to have employment visas," he said.
Macau allows Vietnamese to be helpers, Trung noted. He said some 20,000 Vietnamese worked there, mostly as maids but also in casinos and restaurants.
"I have just met with the chief executive of Macau. He said he highly appreciates our workers, they are a good contribution to the economy, and most of them obey the law. He even said that he wants more Vietnamese in Macau," Trung said.
A Security Bureau spokesman said the government had no current plans to let Vietnamese work as helpers in Hong Kong.
But he added: "the government will regularly review the immigration policies, including those for importation of (maids), to ensure that such policies suit the actual circumstances and needs of Hong Kong."
The government does not allow citizens from some countries to work as maids "after careful consideration of various factors, including the immigration and security risks posed by nationals of the country or territory concerned, the track record of the travellers as well as the social, economic and political conditions of the country or territory concerned."
But even as Vietnam's economy has stabilised since the tumultuous decades following the war there, Trung said it had declined somewhat in the last two years, leading more Vietnamese to come to Hong Kong illegally.
He said illegal workers could make double to triple the salary they could expect at home, but many are also brought here by human traffickers who leave them to be arrested.
The number of Vietnamese arrested for residing illegally in the city has doubled from about 500 in 2013 to about 1,000 last year, Trung said. He expected it to be about 1,000 this year.
