According to the statistics released by the Census and Statistics Department today (August 14), the provisional estimate of the Hong Kong population was 7 448 900 at mid-2018, representing an increase of 57 200 or 0.8% from 7 391 700 at mid-2017 (Table 1).
Population increase comprises natural increase (i.e. births less deaths) and net movement of Hong Kong residents (i.e. inflow less outflow). The natural increase of the population from mid-2017 to mid-2018 amounted to 7 600, with 55 000 births and 47 300 deaths. Over the same period, there was a net movement of 49 600 persons, of which 41 000 were inflow of One-way Permit holders and 8 500 were net inflow of other Hong Kong residents.
The Hong Kong population is measured on the definition of Resident Population, which comprises Usual Residents and Mobile Residents. Among the total population at mid-2018, 7 228 100 (provisional) were Usual Residents and 220 800 (provisional) were Mobile Residents.
"Usual Residents" refer to two categories of people: (1) Hong Kong Permanent Residents who have stayed in Hong Kong for at least three months during the six months before or for at least three months during the six months after the reference time-point, regardless of whether they are in Hong Kong or not at the reference time-point; and (2) Hong Kong Non-permanent Residents who are in Hong Kong at the reference time-point.
For those Hong Kong Permanent Residents who are not "Usual Residents", they are classified as "Mobile Residents" if they have stayed in Hong Kong for at least one month but less than three months during the six months before or for at least one month but less than three months during the six months after the reference time-point, regardless of whether they are in Hong Kong or not at the reference time-point.
The revised figure for the year-end population for 2017 was 7 413 100. The number of Usual Residents was revised to 7 181 400 and the number of Mobile Residents to 231 700. The population growth rate from end-2016 to end-2017 was also revised to 0.5%.
The population figures for recent years are shown in Table 2.
Under the current practice, the latest population figure is released on a provisional basis in each round. The revised figure will be released six months later. In other words, while the provisional population figure for mid-2018 is released today, the corresponding revised figure will be released in February 2019.
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