This (28th) afternoon, the Finance Committee of the Hong Kong Legislative Council voted 37 in favor and 23 against, and approved the third round of the epidemic prevention and anti-epidemic fund allocation worth 24 billion yuan.
The specific content of the third round of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government’s anti-epidemic fund and other support measures involved approximately 24 billion yuan (HK$, the same below), including the use of 4.5 billion yuan to directly fund industries and people who have been hit hard by the epidemic.
Chief Secretary for Administration of the Special Administrative Region Government Zhang Jianzong said that the epidemic has repeated and the next wave of epidemics may occur during the winter flu season. The Special Administrative Region Government must be prepared. The SAR government will spend about 13 billion yuan to improve the epidemic prevention and anti-epidemic capabilities. This money will be mainly used to purchase new crown vaccines, further support the Hospital Authority to respond to the epidemic, and set up quarantine centers for homes for the elderly and homes for the disabled. Zhang Jianzong said that the SAR government will provide direct assistance to 23 industries or areas that have been hit hard by the epidemic, including catering, tourism, aviation and transportation. The special plan to support the unemployed under the Comprehensive Social Security Assistance (CSSA) Scheme will also be extended for 6 months. The above measures involve an amount of about 4.5 billion yuan.
The Financial Secretary of the Special Administrative Region Government, Chen Maobo, pointed out that this round of support measures includes the use of about 6 billion yuan in rent concessions, exemption of government fees, and let Hong Kong Science Park and Cyberport provide rent concessions, and will further optimize the "SME financing guarantee" plan". The SAR government previously established a 30 billion yuan "anti-epidemic fund", and further announced the second round of funds involving 137.5 billion yuan and other relief measures. Chen Maobo said that the total amount of new measures involved is about 24 billion yuan. Together with the previous support measures, the total amount of relief measures introduced by the SAR government has exceeded 300 billion yuan, which is expected to boost GDP by more than 5%.
Zhang Jianzong said that the total commitment amount approved by the Finance Committee of the Legislative Council for the first and second rounds of funds is 150.5 billion yuan. So far, the fund has approved a total of 73 projects, including 16 new projects that used the fund’s emergency funds to implement, with a total commitment of more than 145 billion yuan. As of the end of August, the fund has distributed more than 78 billion yuan in grants, benefiting more than 4.3 million people and more than 450,000 enterprises and merchants.
(reporter Zhou Weiqi Jin Dong)
(editor Wang Fa)
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