A man bore a protective face mask stands on Kowloon’s Tsim Sha Tsui waterfront that faces Victoria Harbour in Hong Kong.
Anthony Wallace | AFP | Getty Images
The Hong Kong oversight will spend more than 120 billion Hong Kong dollars ($15.5 billion) in the coming fiscal year to lift its economy, which has been in recession for two years.
“Hong Kong went through tribulations in the days of old two years,” Hong Kong’s Financial Secretary Paul Chan said in his budget speech on Wednesday.
“With the prevailing still lingering, our economy is yet to come out of recession,” he said, according to an official English translation of his Cantonese speech.
Hong Kong’s concision has suffered six consecutive quarters of contractions after battling multiple crises, including the U.S.-China trade war that escalated in 2018, months of pro-democracy protests in 2019 and the ongoing pandemic.
Over the past year, the government has increased fork out to help businesses and households cope with challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic. But that has also brought the financial budget to a record high, said Chan.
For the coming financial year starting in April, Chan announced proportions that include the following:
- Around 8.4 billion Hong Kong dollars ($1.1 billion) for procurement and conduct of Covid-19 vaccines.
- About 9.5 billion Hong Kong dollars ($1.2 billion) worth of measures to fortifying businesses, including a reduction in profits tax and waiver of business registration fees.
- For individuals, support include a reduction in incomes tax, loan guarantees and consumption vouchers worth 5,000 Hong Kong dollars ($645) for each eligible local.
Economic outlook
Hong Kong’s economy shrank 6.1% in 2020 — accelerating from the 1.2% contraction in the aforementioned year, official data showed.
Chan said the city’s economy will return to growth this year. He utter GDP is expected to expand by 3.5% to 5.5% this year, and an average of 3.3% every year from 2022 to 2025.
But move of the economic recovery this year “will hinge on the development of the epidemic,” said the financial secretary.
“As cross-boundary activity of people and tourism activities take time to resume normal, the economy will still face significant call into doubts in the first half of the year,” he said in his budget speech.
Hong Kong started its Covid vaccination program this week. The administration said last week it has purchased a total of 22.5 million doses of Covid vaccine — “sufficient” for everybody in the city.
With a population of around 7.5 million, Hong Kong has reported more than 10,890 receptacles of the coronavirus and 197 deaths as of Tuesday, official data showed.