Our merchants are losing customers and our economy is in deflation. One of the causes for this unhappy situation is the throng of people - 300,000 each weekend - pouring into Shenzhen to shop and have fun. Last year such visitors spent $35 billion on the mainland, equal to 15 per cent of our total retail receipt.

The bad is going to get worse when the Lowu border crossing operates around the clock and the train runs beyond the current 10.30pm last service deadline. People too are not only heading north for $15 haircut, massage and $500 tailored suits. More of them are investing in condominiums and houses in which they can live in luxury during weekends and holidays to compensate for a crammed existence in Hong Kong in weekdays.

We are faced with a stark choice. We either do nothing about our failing retail businesses and our consumer-spending deficit or we do something to reverse the traffic and stem some of the loss. I made a decision to do something rather than nothing, which was why I tabled a Legislative Council motion last week. I suggested to the government then that it negotiate with the Central Authorities for the issuance of simple multiple entry visas for high earners from the mainland. I also recommended that it review its current, restrictive immigration policy to let in more mainland professionals and investors with $5 million and business plans. Not only did most legislators support my motion, the Secretary for Security Regina Ip also felt my proposals were worth serious consideration.

For more than two decades now Hong Kong has benefited enormously from the opening up of the Chinese mainland. Our economy would not have had a smooth transformation from manufacturing to retail and finance without China's sweeping reforms. Only in March the then Financial Secretary, now Chief Secretary, Donald Tsang admitted in his Budget Speech that our future hinged on an economic fusion with the mainland, especially the Pearl River Delta, now the most industrialized zone in Asia, eclipsing the Osaka and Tokyo corridor.

For a long time we in Hong Kong felt self-satisfied as we deluded ourselves that we would always be ahead of the game, with the mainland being forever our hinterland. The territory, after all, had a lot of advantages, being cosmopolitan, developed, smart, and having a highly educated, resilient and diligent population. But the trouble is that the world does not stand still and relationships change. The mainland, particularly Shanghai, is catching up to Hong Kong, which, to be frank, has stagnated in the past few years.

China has created an economic miracle and also, with it, a professional and entrepreneurial class. Typically a lawyer on the mainland earns upward of $10,000, an information technologist twice as much, and executives even more. These people have spending power and it is evident in neighboring Shenzhen, whose airport everyday launches a dozen or more flights to Beijing alone. Hong Kong has to entice some of these higher earners to come here rather than go elsewhere.

These people are also becoming keen tourists. They account for a quarter of the visitors to Hong Kong and spend as much here as the Japanese and Americans. Many more would visit if we made it easier, less bureaucratic for them to do so. Most find traveling to any country in Southeast Asia less of a hassle than to Hong Kong because of our daily quota of 1,200 of mainland visitors a day. The restriction is forcing these travelers to pay visa fees upward of $1,000 for the privilege.

Critics of my motion maintain that Hong Kong has to be vigilant against these visitors because many might be tempted to overstay and cause mischief. I find the presumption, indeed prejudice, ludicrous, insulting, and indicative of our society's arrogance towards our compatriots from the mainland. People with high income and careers are not going to work illegally in Hong Kong's restaurants and construction sites or engage in vice.
Those who have been to London, San Francisco and Sydney would not be too awed by Hong Kong with its pollution, occasionally rude service, and constant aggravations. We should stop discriminating against our visitors from the mainland and, instead, start treating them as welcome guests. If we do not, then they will take trips and spend their money somewhere else.

Some dismiss my motion as discriminatory because it screens in higher spending visitors and screens out the others. But what I propose that our government do is what most countries do as a matter of common sense and national interest. People who have applied for a visa to the United States - land of the free, home of the brave - know the Americans also vet visitors according to their social and economic background.

I also proposed in my motion that the government work with the Central Authorities to diversify and broaden our immigration policy. Hong Kong has long had a program for bringing in 150 people a day from the mainland to facilitate family reunions. I applaud this policy, even though I realize that most of these arrivals are unskilled job seekers or young dependents of local residents from the working class. But time has come for us to supplement this program with a one for attracting investors from the mainland to Hong Kong. We cannot afford accommodating so many family reunion immigrants and accept the widening economic gap that results. We have to have other immigrants - particularly businessmen and professionals - who can generate the economic and career opportunities to help our other new arrivals.

Countries such as the United States, Canada, Australia and Singapore have an investor immigrant category, which asks for commitments ranging from $2 million to $7.8 million per person or family. Hong Kong, which has lost tens of thousands to emigration, should introduce a similar program. I suggest an investment of $5 million each, an amount that is not set arbitrarily but is calculated to be low enough to attract and high enough to make an impact on the economy.

Some again oppose this suggestion because it supposedly favors the rich. I refute the charge for I actually favor helping the poor by tapping the rich whose investments we need to contribute to our treasury and pay for our social welfare, housing, education and healthcare programs.

There's also a bonus in bringing these successful people to Hong Kong. Many of these new immigrants will have the contacts, connections and knowledge to help us seize business opportunities from whence they came. This is especially important for us as our other main trading partners go into recession while China continues to bloom.
I'm not so naive as to ignore the dangers of money laundering in and attracting shady people to Hong Kong. But I'm sure that the Chinese government will scrutinize those people it qualifies for an exit visa to immigrate abroad. The odds are most of the people we will receive will be law abiding, as most Chinese immigrants are, wherever they settle. Records from around the world show that indeed the Chinese make just about the best immigrants because of their family bond, work ethics, self-reliance, aspirations, mutual aid, and respect for education.

I thank Mrs. Ip for expressing support for the motion and I urge her once more to act on my suggestions quickly because every minute that slips away is another batch of investors and professionals choosing other places over Hong Kong. We should extend a warm greeting rather than frown on those who can make our society better, more prosperous, more enlightened.

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