Financial Secretary John Tsang has announced a $290 million package of measures to help sectors adversely affected by the Occupy movement and to boost promotional efforts to enhance the city's global image.
Delivering his 2015-16 Budget today, Mr Tsang said that prolonged political bickering is detrimental to public administration and Hong Kong's international image, and may even dampen investor confidence in the city.
To help bolster confidence in the local economy in the wake of last year's Occupy movement, the Government will waive licence fees for 1,800 travel agents and 2,000 hotels and guesthouses for six months.
It will also waive restaurant and hawker licence fees, and restricted food permit fees for six months, benefiting 26,000 eateries and operators.
The Government will waive the fees once for the renewal of taxi, light bus, franchised and non-franchised bus, goods vehicle, trailer and special purpose vehicle licences within a year.
Mr Tsang said that besides affecting local business, the Occupy protests had hurt Hong Kong's international image.
To help rebuild international investor and tourist confidence in the city, Mr Tsang has allocated an extra $80 million to the Tourism Board to step up its promotion efforts in the coming year.
An additional $26 million will be allocated to the Information Services Department for inviting overseas media organisations and global opinion leaders to Hong Kong, and to arrange for more overseas visits.
Mr Tsang described small-and-medium-sized enterprises as the mainstay of Hong Kong's economy.
He proposed injecting $1.5 billion into the SME Export Marketing and Development Funds, while increasing the maximum funding support for each project from $2 million to $5 million. The scope of the SME Export Marketing Fund will also be expanded.
