Government Budgets

Anti-corruption drive targets off-budget spending

27 Mar 2013

Premier Li Keqiang told the State Council's first meeting on fighting corruption that curbs would be gradually introduced at all levels of government to curb off-budget spending.

5:31AM

Deputies give lowest marks in six years to budget and court

18 Mar 2013

Thousands of National People's Congress deputies gave the lowest endorsement in the past six years to government, budget and court reports yesterday - a small sign of progress in the top...

5:28AM

John Tsang lacks budgetary vision for better education in Hong Kong

17 Mar 2013

For policymakers, the question often arises, should policy dictate budgets or should budgets dictate policy? For natural-born political leaders, the former is axiomatic. For Hong Kong policymakers...

2:21AM

Beijing must make fighting pollution its priority

11 Mar 2013

Market observers were quick to draw a connection between Beijing's announcement of record spending and a prompt surge in the Dow Jones Industrial Average to a new peak. That shows how much the...

3:16AM

World's economies need US budget compromise

4 Mar 2013

Barring a breakthrough like "grand bargains" of the past, Washington will implement US$85 billion in spending cuts by September and US$1.2 trillion in cuts over the next 10 years. Economists say...

3:27AM

The budget that should have been

4 Mar 2013

"My proposal is this. With effect from January 1, 2015, every Hong Kong citizen aged 70 or above will be entitled as of right to enjoy a pension paid by a new statutory body to be set up for the...

3:27AM

Opinion

Wang Xiangwei

Placating graduates a work in progress

2 comments

5:24AM

George Chen

For HSBC, the first love is apparently not the deepest

7:12AM

America's high-stakes gamble on spending cuts

A decade of budget deficits run up in war and economic crisis has saddled the government with a US$16 trillion debt. Now the government is about to start cutting spending in some programmes,...

5:49AM

US combat ships try to stay afloat amid billions in budget cuts

Hong Kong this weekend plays host to the USS Blue Ridge, flagship of the US Seventh Fleet and one of the navy's oldest vessels. Steaming to Singapore, meanwhile, is its newest - the USS Freedom,...

5:42AM

Talking points

Four drug traffickers, including Golden Triangle kingpin Naw Kham, will be executed in Kunming , Yunnan province, according to state media. Naw Kham and three accomplices were convicted of...

3:32AM

Budget meets its first duty, but where's the vision?

In carrying out the chief executive's vision, Tsang has done his duty, but only just. Enough resources will be allocated to Leung's projects, such as the new Old Age Living Allowance. But Tsang...

3:32AM

3 comments

LEADER

John Tsang again delivers overly cautious budget

Delivering a budget with new thinking has proved to be a challenge for John Tsang Chun-wah. While the veteran finance chief managed to provide some short-term relief for the needy without losing...

3:37AM

MONITOR

At last Tsang accepts that our fiscal policy needs an overhaul

At least some of the criticism directed at John Tsang Chun-wah recently must have stung. In his budget speech yesterday, the financial secretary attempted to defend his piecemeal approach to...

5:02AM