moving to HKG or not????

[Marcomo]

Hello everybody,


First a short introduction of myself, I'm a 28 years old dutch guy and live together with my girlfriend (common law spouse, not married) near Amsterdam.

I'm new here and joined for the following reason:
Cathay Pacific offered me a job in Hong Kong.

I've got some questions about the following:
Cathay offers me a salary about 32.400 HKD per month + a minimum of 24.000 HKD for housing per month. For me all medical health care will covered as well (not my girlfriend).

Basically my question is as follows; Will all of this be sufficient to have a "normal" life in Hong Kong for 2 persons? Will there be enough money to have dinner, going out, travel, etc etc?

Thank you very much for your help!

[PDLM]

Yes the money will be plenty. But remember that your partner will not be able to get a visa permitting residence in HK. She (assuming a EU ex-UK passport) will be able to enter for up to 3 months at a time as a Visitor, but there is a risk that Immigration will after a while decline to continue issuing such Vistor entry permissions. Of course if she is able to get a job for which an Emplyment Visa would be granted in her own right then this problem would be solved.

[KnowItAll]

>> travel, etc etc?

Specially if you can ID 90.

[kirlex]

Common law spouse is not eligable for a dependent visa. Maybe the HK government thinks that people will abuse it if they allow it?. So unless you and your spouse marry, she will be unable to stay with you for the complete duration of your contract.

Apart from that the salary is decent, and the housing allowance is good as well. Watch out about the communte, the Cathay office is near the airport!

[Marcomo]

Thank you all for the quick replies,

Today I figured out that some of the Cathay staff at the same office make about 30% more salary then what they offer me, so I need to do some negotiation

My girlfriend has the Thai Nationality, will this be any better in respect of getting a visa?

Again Thanks!

[Marcomo]

Oh.... And Yes the ID90 is great
At this moment I'm working for KLM and i use the standby tickets a lot! Big Advantage!

[captaincleanoff]

dude thats an alright salary, u'll be ok

[PDLM]

Unfortunately Thai nationals only get 30 days on each entry as a visitor, and Immigration tends to look much harder at them on re-entry. I think the chances of her being allowed to get, say, 12 back-to-back 30 day vistior's entries are slim.

The only safe answer would be to marry her, in which case she would get a dependent visa and which will shortly (announced in principle but no specific date yet) also give her the right to work without further paperwork.

[penguinsix]

HK Immigration stamps the tourist stamps (well, most entry stamps) on the exact same page if at possible. You can hand them an extended passport with 50+ pages and they'll look for and find the HK stamps and add the next one on that page, specifically to look for the 'in and out' folks trying to avoid a visa.

Once or twice, maybe, but as soon as a pattern is detected, they will throw her out.

[EUChinese]

Hello everybody,


First a short introduction of myself, I'm a 28 years old dutch guy and live together with my girlfriend (common law spouse, not married) near Amsterdam.

I'm new here and joined for the following reason:
Cathay Pacific offered me a job in Hong Kong.

I've got some questions about the following:
Cathay offers me a salary about 32.400 HKD per month + a minimum of 24.000 HKD for housing per month. For me all medical health care will covered as well (not my girlfriend).

Basically my question is as follows; Will all of this be sufficient to have a "normal" life in Hong Kong for 2 persons? Will there be enough money to have dinner, going out, travel, etc etc?

Thank you very much for your help!

there is no coffee shop in HK like yours in Amsterdam, can u cope ? :-)