Aircraft maintenance engineers, accountants and financial professionals with Islamic market experience will be among nine professions added to Hong Kong's Talent List from March 1.

The government also wants new blood with a background in commodities trading, as well as systems architects, patent professionals, ship surveyors, professionals in green shipping, and legal knowledge engineers in the legal and dispute resolution sector.

At a closed-door media briefing on Tuesday, the Labour Bureau said that by expanding the number of jobs on the list to 60, the government is hoping to find talented people who can add significant value to the economy in areas where there are staff shortages and where it is not practical to train up locals.

On the other hand, it said requests from industries to add further roles to the list, including pilots and language therapists, have been rejected because there are sufficient training opportunities for local people to take up such jobs.

People in professions on the list get a smoother immigration process when applying to work in Hong Kong through various talent schemes, officials say.

The last expansion of the Talent List was in May 2023, when the number of professions rose from 13 to 51.

The bureau said between May 2023 and the end of last year it received 1,123 applications for work visas involving jobs on the list.