Secretary for Labour and Welfare Chris Sun on Tuesday said the government will recruit talent from primarily Southeast Asia and Europe in the coming year, with Malaysia being the first stop.

In an interview with RTHK marking the second anniversary of the current term of government, Sun spoke about the multilingual skills of Malaysians.

“They are fluent in English, and many also speak fluent Cantonese and Mandarin. There’s a good talent pool and I think it’s worthy for us to give it a try,” he said.

“During my visits to Southeast Asia, I can tell many people there are eager to come to Hong Kong. But we need to realise that they are not here on travel, they want to work. So if they could be introduced to what to prepare as well as the development opportunities in Hong Kong, that will increase their desire to come to the SAR.”

Sun also said the government will try to recruit financial and technology talent from Europe.

Separately, the welfare chief mentioned a three-year plan to boost the number of care workers in the SAR.

The scheme to import care workers for residential care homes was rolled out in June last year, and Sun noted that all 7,000 places available under the quota were used up in the first three rounds of applications.

He said after considering factors such as an ageing population and manpower loss, the SAR will need to import 8,000 more care workers over the next three years.

Sun stressed that the priority is still on local workers. “I understand that many local care workers hope to earn more money and have better promotion opportunities, but fail to do so due to their lower education level,” he said.

The government will study if care workers with less formal education could be promoted, with the emphasis instead on their work experience, Sun added.