EditorialA budget that offers the chance for Hong Kong to emerge stronger
- Financial Secretary Paul Chan has somehow managed to handle a tough juggling act, acceding to demands for a cash handout while also seeing that struggling sectors have an opportunity to stay afloat
Desperate times call for desperate measures. Despite an array of immediate relief and long-term recovery initiatives, Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po knew perfectly well that his fourth budget would have been a non-starter if he had not handed out an exceptional HK$10,000 (US$1,280) cash sweetener to every permanent resident of Hong Kong.
For a city battered by an escalating epidemic after prolonged civil unrest and the United States-China trade war, juggling fiscal prudence and an economic bailout was sadly a political reality faced by the finance minister.
So unanimous was the call for a cash handout this year that shunning it would have been political suicide.
The payout, the third since the city’s return to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, must be the exception rather than the norm. With a staggering bill of HK$71 billion, a boost to the economy can be expected.
The budget deficit, however, will also shoot up to a record HK$139.1 billion. Whether the largesse can boost the government’s flagging popularity remains to be seen. But taxpayers who take issue with the handling of the unrest and the coronavirus epidemic are probably unimpressed.