Hong Kong’s Monetary Secretary Paul Chan pledged HK$120 billion ($15.5 billion) of fiscal help for an financial system slowly rising from two years of recession.
Click on right here for our reside weblog of the finances speech.
After final 12 months’s bumper stimulus to help the financial system via the pandemic, Hong Kong is now focusing on reining in a file finances deficit. Chan has already signaled there received’t be the sort of money handouts offered to residents final 12 months, with help prone to be focused towards companies and people who want it probably the most.
Town’s financial system has shrunk two years in a row already amid political and social unrest in 2019 earlier than the pandemic hit. Town’s consumption industries, from eating places to retailers and tourism, have been notably onerous hit with retail gross sales plummeting and unemployment surging to the very best in additional than 16 years.
| Hong Kong’s Key Fiscal Stimulus Measures in 2020 | ||
|---|---|---|
| February | HK$30 billion | Assist to Hospital Authority, retail subsidy |
| HK$120 billion | HK$10,000 money handout | |
| April | HK$137.5 billion | Wages help subsidy |
| September | HK$24 billion | Catering, tourism subsidies |
| December | HK$6.four billion | Catering subsidy |
| Complete | HK$317.9 billion | |
The federal government introduced nearly HK$320 billion in virus stimulus final 12 months to help industries and the financial system, centered on a HK$10,000 money handout to residents and a wage subsidy program to stem job losses. A repeat of such measures is unlikely, in line with economists.
