Many Capital Investment Entrant Scheme participants are optimistic on Hong Kong's investment prospects, and think the city's advantage as an international financial centre and its unique position with the Mainland offer numerous opportunities.

This is the message from Secretary for Financial Services & the Treasury Frederick Ma in his latest FSTB & You column posted on the bureau's website today.

Mr Ma said, according to the Immigration Department, 289 applications have been received up to April 24, since the scheme was launched. There have also been 429 related applications from dependants.

Eighty-six of the capital investment applicants have made the specified investment and were granted formal approval to come to Hong Kong.

He said their investment totals over $600 million - the average amount invested by each person is $7.13 million, which is higher than the required minimum amount of investment under the scheme, set at $6.5 million.

Another 84 were granted approval-in-principle to come and invest under the scheme.

Majority invest in financial assets

According to further analysis, the majority (66.2%) invested in specified financial assets only, around 19.8% in real estate only, and 14% invested in both.

In terms of investment amount, the total in specified financial assets exceeded $400 million (66.4%) whereas that in real estate amounted to more than $200 million (33.6%).

"In fact, apart from the above-mentioned attractions, Hong Kong has many other advantages, including a low tax regime, the rule of law, free flow of information, sound infrastructure and absence of foreign exchange control. All of these attract foreign investors," Mr Ma said.

"I hope you will recommend the scheme to your overseas relatives and friends so as to encourage more foreign investors to come and invest here. This would provide a boost to Hong Kong's overall economy, including the development of our financial services sector."