The one-off relief measures in the 2015-16 Budget can boost the economy and help relieve the public’s financial burden.
This was the message from Financial Secretary John Tsang at his post-Budget press conference today.
He said the Budget’s relief measures can boost GDP by 1%, which is important for the economy as GDP is forecast to grow at 1-3% next year.
He said the Budget surplus has allowed the Government to implement new measures, despite expecting operating expenditure to rise by 11.5% in the next financial year. He said recurrent expenditure will make up a major portion of it, however, it is also necessary to provide relief measures as the economic situation has been abnormal since 2008.
Speaking on the effect of the Occupy Central movement, Mr Tsang said Hong Kong must shore up business sentiment and boost its image abroad, so he has allocated more money to the Tourism Board and the Information Services Department to boost overseas promotion.
Mr Tsang said he is not yet able to measure the economic damage caused by the Occupy movement, but he quoted figures suggesting the business of the retail industry, restaurants and hotels had suffered in the fourth quarter of last year.
