Mid-year population for 2020

     According to the statistics released by the Census and Statistics Department today (August 13), the provisional estimate of the Hong Kong population was 7 509 200 at mid-2020. The population remained virtually unchanged, as compared with that at mid-2019 (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-2019 to mid-2020 was 600, with 49 500 births and 48 900 deaths. Over the same period, a net movement of 1 200 persons was recorded, with an inflow of 22 100 One-way Permit holders and a net outflow of 20 900 other Hong Kong residents. Due to the suspension of passenger clearance services at the Lo Wu Control Point under the COVID-19 epidemic since February 4, 2020, the inflow of One-way Permit holders dropped significantly by 50.2% when compared with the 44 400 during the same period a year ago.
 
     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-2020, 7 355 800 (provisional) were Usual Residents and 153 400 (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 2019 was 7 520 800. The number of Usual Residents was revised to 7 365 300 and the number of Mobile Residents to 155 500. The population growth rate from end-2018 to end-2019 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-2020 is released today, the corresponding revised figure will be released in February 2021.