Over 900 applicants are fighting for 25 places in a new four-year graduate-entry programme that will begin in September, the University of Hong Kong's Dean of Medicine Wallace Lau said on Sunday.

The extra training places are funded by the government to help address Hong Kong's doctor shortage.

Lau told a Commercial Radio programme that the majority of applicants were locals with some having graduated from top universities overseas.

“We hope the enrolled students can bring learning experiences from their undergraduate studies in fields such as bioscience and bioengineering. Such backgrounds will be helpful for the city's development in bioscience technology in the future. Also, it will help with their critical thinking as doctors,” he said.

Separately, Lau said the HKU medical school had also been recruiting from outside Hong Kong.

Recent hiring sessions held in the UK had resulted in over 30 applications to the school, Lau said.

He said applicants had been attracted by internationally competitive salaries and the development opportunities in Hong Kong, particularly with regard to mainland China.