My Take | Paul Chan spreads some Hong Kong budget cheer – let’s hope it can last
With a record surplus of HK$138 billion, the financial secretary has given a little bit to everyone, but whether it will help society as a whole is a different matter
The “new” fiscal rhetoric, as finance chief Paul Chan Mo-po puts it, is to “optimise the use of surplus … to relieve our people’s burdens … and respond to community aspirations promptly and effectively”.
At least Chan has done away in his budget speech with “the need for [financial] prudence”, the favourite but trite phrase of his predecessor John Tsang Chun-wah.
For good measure, Chan said he agreed “entirely” with this view of his boss Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, a reference, no doubt, to disagreements between Tsang and former chief executive Leung Chun-ying over government spending when the two men were in office. He even projects fiscal surpluses for the next five years.
That’s not something you ever heard from Tsang.