Task force set to give young people more 'upward mobility' hope

A new government task force has been set up to boost the chances of young Hongkongers to get ahead in life as Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying said a lack of "upward mobility" was one of the reasons large numbers of young people joined the Occupy protests.

Convened under the Commission on Poverty - a flagship creation of the Leung administration - the task force will be responsible for coming up with strategies to alleviate the feeling of many young people that they could be Hong Kong's first generation to grow up less well off than their parents.

However, the decision raised the eyebrows of two commission members, and one of Leung's key allies said the protesters' concerns were mainly political.

The announcement came as the government pointed to a "marked improvement" in the poverty situation last year, as the latest estimate of the number of poor people - 970,000 - was the first time it had fallen below a million since 2009.

The poverty rate also sat at an all-time low, at 14.5 per cent. The government said this was thanks to cash handouts and other welfare spending.

Speaking at government headquarters, a wall away from the Admiralty sit-in zone, Leung said: "One of the reasons [for Occupy] - I am not saying it is a major reason or minor reason; obviously the main cause is the disagreement on constitutional development - is a lack of upward mobility."

Executive Council member Fanny Law Fan Chiu-fun said the student leaders had "no such problem as upward mobility".