The Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Lin Zheng Yue’e, and a number of officials of the SAR Government held a press conference on the 8th and announced that they will provide 50% of wage subsidies to eligible employers in Hong Kong for half a year. The beneficiary employers must promise not to lay off employees. In addition, Lin Zhengyue and key officials of the SAR government will cut their salaries by 10% in the coming year.
The Hong Kong SAR Government announced on the same day the details of the second round of “Epidemic and Anti-epidemic Fund” subsidy, totaling about 137.5 billion yuan (HK $, the same below). The main measures include: using 80 billion yuan to provide eligible employers with 50% salary subsidies, each employee is capped at 9,000 yuan, for a period of 6 months, 1.5 million employees are expected to benefit, the first phase will be paid no later than June this year; use 21 billion Yuan provides subsidies for specific industries; optimizes the financing guarantee plan for SMEs; relaxes the upper limit of the assets of the CSSA scheme; and reduces the subway fare by 20% from July.
“We must do our best to prevent the expected corporate failures and large-scale layoffs.” Lin Zhengyue said that the COVID-19 virus has brought unprecedented challenges to Hong Kong, so the SAR government will also launch unprecedented measures. She pointed out that, together with the first round of 30 billion yuan of the “Epidemiological and Anti-epidemic Fund” and the 120 billion yuan support measures involved in the budget, the SAR government’s short-term relief measures for citizens and enterprises have reached 287.5 billion yuan.
Lin Zhengyue said that in order to share the hardship with the public, he and the main officials of the SAR government, including 3 directors, 13 directors, and the Chief Executive ’s Office, will reduce their salaries by 10% in the next 12 months. “What is needed now is that we work together to fight the epidemic together.”
The Financial Secretary of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Chen Maobo said that the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on the global and Hong Kong economies exceeded the 2008 financial tsunami. In order to avoid a spiraling decline in the economy and employment, it is necessary to decisively introduce measures to support enterprises, secure employment, and ease the hardship of the people.
Chen Maobo predicts that multiple rounds of measures and severe economic situation will further increase the fiscal deficit this year, reducing Hong Kong’s fiscal reserves of about 1.1 trillion yuan to 8,000 to 900 billion yuan. This reserve is equivalent to 14 to 15 months of government expenditure, so Hong Kong ’s public finances remain sound.
Chen Maobo said that the fiscal reserves gradually established in the past when the economy is improving are to play a role when difficulties are encountered, so as to enable Hong Kong to launch large-scale countercyclical support measures in a difficult environment to alleviate the economic downturn to the public. The impact of life.