The Government is proactively exploring and implementing suitable solutions to increase imported labour on an appropriate and regulated basis to alleviate the manpower shortage in Hong Kong.

Secretary for Labour & Welfare Chris Sun made the statement in response to lawmakers' questions at the Legislative Council today, saying the importation of labour will proceed on the premise of safeguarding the employment priority for local workers.

Mr Sun pointed out that the Labour & Welfare Bureau will implement a special scheme to import care workers for residential care homes in June and that the applications from the care homes will be processed with greater flexibility.

As for the transport sector, the Transport & Logistics Bureau is reviewing the latest manpower situation and considering various measures to drive the sustainable manpower development in the industry, with a view to putting up initial proposals by the middle of this year.

Other bureaus will examine the need for manpower resources of their responsible industries to formulate corresponding strategies as necessary, he added.

The labour chief noted that the new round of manpower projection will also begin in the middle of this year, to assess the broad trends of future manpower supply and demand in different key economic sectors at the macro level.

The Government launched the Top Talent Pass Scheme at the end of last year to attract high-income talent and graduates from the world's top 100 universities to Hong Kong for development. As at March 14, the scheme had received more than 17,000 applications, of which over 10,000 were approved.