The measure to tackle poverty is in line with the four expectations set by Chinese President Xi Jinping for the city during his visit last year, which included taking solid steps to improve residents’ livelihoods and strengthening development momentum.

Hong Kong slipped two places from fifth to seventh in this year’s World Competitiveness Yearbook, an annual report published last month by the Swiss-based International Institute for Management Development.

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The city was once regarded as the world’s most competitive economy, taking the top spot in 2018.

“There is a need to fill the gap in Hong Kong because it will affect local competitiveness,” he said on a radio programme. “Not only do we have to be competitive enough, but we also need to win against other people.”

He explained that Hong Kong had a working population deficit of more than 200,000 people, over half of which was attributed to low-skilled workers.

Authorities last month announced they would allow imported labour to fill 26 unskilled or low-skilled jobs, including servers, clerks, warehouse keepers and delivery workers. In a meeting with the government, labour representatives staged a walkout to protest a lack of consultation before the policy was rolled out.

Lee said priority would always be given to local employment and authorities would apply strict controls to approving overseas workers.

He added that the wage of imported workers could not be lower than the median personal income, otherwise employers would exploit the system to recruit cheap labour.

Authorities launched the Top Talent Pass Scheme last year to entice 35,000 quality migrants using a special visa.

Eligible applicants include high-earners making at least HK$2.5 million a year and graduates from the world’s top 100 universities, such as Beijing’s Tsinghua University, Yale University in the United States and Durham University in Britain.

Lee said the government had approved 49,000 applications by May.

He added that authorities would consider relaxing the threshold to allow graduates outside the 100 institutions to apply.

“I won’t pass up any chance. My gain is other people’s losses,” he said. “It is like a rowing race. If a strong athlete went for another team, we would definitely fall behind.”

Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po in a blog post on Sunday said that Hong Kong’s gross domestic product had exceeded HK$2.8 trillion, more than double that of 1997.

Chan added the city’s 2.8 per cent average annual growth rate was higher than the 1.9 per cent over the same period in other advanced economies, and GDP per capita had reached a high level of US$49,000.

But the latest statistics from the Census and Statistics Department show that almost one quarter of Hongkongers in 2020, or about 1.6 million people, were facing poverty before taking into account government support.

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The poverty threshold varies depending on the size of a household, under the measurement used by authorities. For example, a three-person household earning a total monthly income of HK$16,000 or less is considered to be living in poverty, according to 2020 figures.

In his policy address last year, Lee suggested a “targeted poverty alleviation” strategy, in line with the concept first raised by Xi in 2014 to target rural areas.

Critics have argued the government lacks a blueprint to look into the city’s poverty problems holistically. A recent survey found that less than 30 per cent of residents polled were satisfied with the government’s poverty alleviation measures.

The government’s initial plan targeted young people living in subdivided housing flats, putting 2,800 junior secondary students in mentorship and exchange programmes in a bid to alleviate intergenerational poverty.

Lee said in a separate, televised interview that the second phase could focus on impoverished elderly singles and couples who lived alone.

The Commission on Poverty was currently studying how the city should define poverty, he noted.

“Regardless of the statistical methodology used, it won’t hinder the direction of the targeted measures in my policy address to tackle intergenerational poverty,” Lee said.

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He said the availability of 12,000 public housing flats in future would help reduce the waiting time for them to 4.5 years.

At present, residents have to wait for 5.3 years to be assigned a public rental flat, down from 6.1 years recorded in March 2022.

“We will see about 2,000 units available for occupation next year, shortening the wait time by an average of 6.5 months,” he said. “Will it be lowered further? Of course, I hope so, but we all need to be pragmatic.”

Lee declined to comment on whether the administration would still press ahead with the housing project on the city’s oldest golf course in Fanling before the town planning board had come to a decision.

But he said the diverse views about the project had shown that people were free to express their opinions peacefully. He added that he attached high importance to opinions critical of the government and had no intention to intervene in social media.

“I hear more critical opinions than non-critical ones, so the expressions are diverse,” he said. “It is impossible to stop things from spreading [on social media].”