Working visa of returning graduate

[tagtraum]

Hi,

I have studied master course in HK before and now applying working visa as "returning graduate". I thought it would be easy for "non-local graduate" to get working visa, however, my company was notified that my salary does not meet the market standard, and we are required to supplement a lot of documents which were not required in IANG scheme but rather required in GEP scheme.

Now I have some questions:
1. I'm required to hand in proof of personal financial standing. Is it ok to hand in the bank statement in HK only? How much savings would be considered enough or not enough?
2. Does raising the salary help? Would I still assessed by my financial standing and working experience?

Thanks. I'm really concerned.

[MandM!]

I never heard of giving personal financials of the employee under GEP.

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[shafiq]

I applied for returning IANG and did not give any proof of personal standings either. Salary might be an issue if its far less than the market standard. But IANG is far simple than the GEP. Raising the salary will surely help, as i have seen at-least one person, whos visa was refused on the first go and was accepted after the salary was increased.

[StellainHK]

Hi my suspicion is that immigration might have put your application through the wrong office. This happened to me 3 years ago. My visa was processed under the GEP when it should have been done under IANG.

What you need to do is phone or go to immigration and tell them very clearly you are a HKU/CU/CityU/otherU graduate and eventually someone will understand. Your application needs to be processed through the Quality Migrant and mainland Chinese office on the 7/F (if I remember well...) not by the office on the 5/F (easy if your immigration officer is on the 5/F it's the wrong office).

The only requirement for returning graduates is to be at local HK graduate salary (anything over about 12/14K should do it but I have seen even lower salaries go through).

I hope it all clears up soon!
Cheers!

[tagtraum]

I suspect this too. But upon noticed by immigration dept, my company pointed out to the immigration dept officer that I was graduated from HK university, and the officer seemed not surprised and didn't say anything. However, they really didn't receive my graduation testimonial, though I did enclosed that with other docs.

I'll have to send supplement documentation to 24F of wanchai immigration dept. Not 7F nor 5F. Does anyone know what is 24F for?

Maybe I should still make a phone call to make sure my application is under IANG but not GEP. My company has contacted the officer before about my degree from hk, if I call and ask this once more, will this make the officer a bad impression?

Thank you very much.

[shafiq]

Employment and Visit Visas Section is on 24th floor. Your visa is processed as GEP, not as IANG. Did you fill in the right form as in Immd website? If yes, you have to call them soon. IANG is processed at 7th floor.

[StellainHK]

Shafiq is right 24/F floor is GEP.

If you can go directly to the Immigration Department with a copy of your degree certificate and show it to the immigration officer. I had to go and show them the section in the "FAQ on Immigration Arrangements for Non Local Graduates" that I printed off and kept pointing at it until someone understood (mind you that was 3 years ago when the new rules had just been implemented).

What nobody tells you is that you have to file the IANG visa application directly with the Quality Migrant office (ideally in person). If you send it in, it is more often than not forwarded to the wrong office (that's what happened to me) and it leads to all sorts of problems...

[tagtraum]

Thanks for responding.
I want to make sure that I'm "returning graduate", not "fresh graduate", I applied for IANG as fresh graduate last year with no friction. Will "returning graduate" then be processed at 24F?

[shafiq]

Returning graduate IANG was processed at 7th Floor for me. I graduated in 2008 and applied for Returning graduate visa on 2011. I got back the visa from 7th floor, Quality Migrants section.

IANG is the category for both the fresh and returning non local. I got my visa 10 months back and am not sure whether anything is changed recently, like the IANG processing moving to 24th floor or something like that? Better to check with Immd once more to make sure its IANG..