MR YIU SI-WING (in Cantonese): Deputy President, Hong Kong is a State Party to the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and no State Party shall expel, return or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture. The original procedures of the SAR Government had provided sufficient protection to claimants in respect of screening, interview, legal assistance, appeal and judicial review. However, since the Court of Final Appeal upheld the appeal in two cases in 2012, the Hong Kong Immigration Department ("ImmD") has re-introduced a unified screening mechanism of higher standards. Under the new mechanism, in addition to providing basic humanitarian aid and free legal services to the claimants in each case, more onerous and rigorous procedures, as well as multiple appeals and complicated screenings have been incorporated, geared to improving human rights protection and avoiding wrong judgment. This is of course understandable but the mechanism has been exploited by law-breakers. Owing to their abuse of the procedures, the issue of non-refoulement claim cases has been plaguing Hong Kong in recent years.

Since the implementation of the new mechanism in March 2014, the number of non-ethnic Chinese illegal immigrants and the number of persons claiming non-refoulement protection in Hong Kong have soared. The average number of non-ethnic Chinese illegal immigrants was only 840 in each of the previous three years, but the number increased to 3 800 in 2015, which is 2.4 times the number before the implementation of the mechanism. The average number of non-refoulement claim cases increased five times from 1 000 in each of the previous three years to 5 000 in 2015. The Government had spent a lot of public money in this connection and it had put in $5.8 billion within six years from 2014 to the present. From the implementation of the new screening mechanism to late November 2018, the total number of non-refoulement claim cases exceeded 23 000 but refugee status was established in 77 cases, taking up only 0.3%, meaning that there are far more bogus refugees than genuine refugees. The smuggling syndicates has exploited the loophole under the mechanism and recruited claimants by various means. As a result, the problems of bogus refugees, illegal workers, law and order and street sleeping have constantly emerged.

After the Policy Address 2016 proposed to optimize the screening mechanism to plug the loopholes, the Security Bureau immediately launched a series of measures to reduce the chances of abusing the mechanism. I support the Government's measures against the abuse of the mechanism for non-refoulement claims.

I hope the Government will review one of the measures. Since January 2017, ImmD has implemented pre-arrival registration for Indian passport holders. Indian nationals are required to complete pre-arrival registration before they can visit Hong Kong visa-free. When compared with visa-free access to Hong Kong in the past, this will undoubtedly dampen Indian visitors' desire to visit Hong Kong.

According to the figures provided by the Hong Kong Tourism Board ("HKTB"), the Indian market was growing each year from 2013 to 2015 and the growth rate in 2014 even reached 18.7%. After the implementation of pre-arrival registration in 2017, the number of Indian visitors dropped by 18.3% as compared with the preceding year. Although the Government explained that the success rate of pre-arrival registration is very high (more than 90%) and unsuccessful applicants can submit an application for a visa to visit Hong Kong, given the high flexibility in travelling, visitors, especially family visitors, can visit other places instead. Imagine that if one of the family members fail to get pre-arrival registration approval before departure, this will definitely affect the desire of other members to visit Hong Kong. The same applies to corporate tour groups. If Hong Kong imposes restrictions on visa-free access, corporates may find pre-arrival registration very troublesome and are afraid that some of their employees may not be able to visit Hong Kong, hence they will choose to visit other visa-free places. This practice will somehow affect Hong Kong's competitiveness in the Indian market.

In recent years, the number of inbound overseas visitors has remained low and the emerging Indian market has always been the focus of HKTB's promotion. India's economic development in recent years has been robust, and those who can afford to travel abroad are mostly middle-class people, mainly family visitors. Their spending power is high and one of their favourite tourist spot is the Hong Kong Disneyland. Seeing that young people in India love to read, HKTB invited an Indian author to write a love story in 2014 using Hong Kong as the background. As the novel is very popular in India, HKTB has worked with Indian travel agencies to launch Hong Kong tours using scenes in the novel as the theme. This act has attracted the attention of many Indian nationals. The diversified culture in Hong Kong is also an important factor that attracts Indian visitors. HKTB and the tourism industry have invested a lot of resources in India in the past few years and it is now time for a harvest; yet, the practice of pre-arrival registration does have a considerable impact.

As shown by the recent figures, through multi-pronged measures, the number of non-refoulement claim cases has significantly decreased and the incentives for bogus refugees to come to Hong Kong by exploiting the loopholes have also been further reduced. Nonetheless, the number of inbound Indian visitors has also decreased; fortunately, the rate of decrease is not too high and the rate of decrease in 2018 was only 1.6%. I hope the Government will, in the light of the present trend, review the pre-arrival registration arrangement for Indian visitors in due course, and also consider how to further simplify the procedures to avoid, as far as possible, affecting Indian visitors who are really interested in visiting Hong Kong. As the Indian market has shown signs of recovery, HKTB should also step up promotion to avoid wasting past efforts.

Deputy President, I so submit.