- The cost works out at an average of HK$15,770 for each of the 469 evacuees aboard
- The city has brought back more than 1,000 residents from the mainland Chinese province since the outbreak began
The first four chartered flights to bring Hongkongers back from one of the epicentres of the coronavirus pandemic cost taxpayers about HK$7.4 million (US$950,000), officials have revealed.
The sum, disclosed in a government reply to lawmakers about the latest budget spending on Wednesday, means an average cost of HK$15,770 for each of the 469 evacuees aboard the flights from Hubei province.
The paper also revealed that the Immigration Department spent another HK$17,000 on the operation.
"The central government has shown care about the operation," the Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Bureau, which will shoulder the cost of the flights, said in the paper. "This operation has provided valuable experience for future reference."
Since late January, Hong Kong's government has come under public pressure to bring citizens stranded in Hubei and other parts of the world back to the city, as the spread of the coronavirus has accelerated.
In early March, 225 passengers were first evacuated from the Diamond Princess cruise ship, which had been moored in Tokyo Bay.
The first four Hubei flights brought the 469 city residents " among them pregnant women and students about to take university entrance exams " from 20 cities in the province.
In late March, another 558 Hongkongers returned to the city from Hubei on four more chartered flights. The government was yet to provide the cost for the second round of Hubei flights, or costs involved in quarantining the evacuees.
Unlike the earlier rescue flights, a chartered flight to Peru and back will be paid for by the about 80 residents stranded in the South American country, the government announced on Tuesday. Each evacuee will reportedly pay about HK$30,000. Officials have not explained why the flights will not be subsidised.
More than 4,185 Hong Kong residents in Hubei have requested assistance from the Hong Kong government's office in Wuhan, the provincial capital. Similar offices in other cities have received 167 requests, involving 234 people. Hong Kong's offices in the cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu and Wuhan, as well as one in Guangdong province, have received several million dollars in funding for the coming financial year, with the Wuhan office getting the biggest increase, from HK$42 million to HK$54 million annually.
Hong Kong residents stuck in Peru to fly home this week
Civic Party lawmaker Jeremy Tam Man-ho said all Hongkongers stranded outside the city " whether in Hubei or Peru " should be required to pay for the chartered flights, as they would have had to pay for their return trip anyway, before the pandemic caused lockdowns and travel chaos.
He said the cost of the Hubei flights was within his expectations, and he estimated the second batch would cost about the same.
Ho Kai-ming, a lawmaker with the Federation of Trade Unions, said it was justified for the government to take the Hongkongers stranded in Wuhan back home and the cost was unavoidable in this situation.
He also expected the expenditure on the second batch of Hubei flights would be about the same.
But Ho said the Hongkongers in Peru should pay for their flights, as they chose to travel after many foreign nations had issued travel bans and health conditions abroad were in doubt.
Meanwhile, while most exchanges with the mainland have taken a hit recently, the Hong Kong government said it would boost promotion of the city north of the border, and arrange visits and exchanges when the pandemic is over, hoping to offset negative publicity caused by the social unrest rocking the city since June last year.
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