Govt to be prudent: CE

January 19, 2021

Chief Executive Carrie Lam:

The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government has been rolling out financial relief schemes in the whole year last year. It (took) a heavy toll on the public finances of the Hong Kong SAR, so we have to be very prudent.

At the moment, I understand we have no plans to extend the Employment Support Scheme, and hence, I can foresee that the unemployment figures that the Government is going to announce this afternoon will be bad.

So, one would expect that we (will be) seeing more job losses and the unemployment figures will go up. Whether we would consider more financial assistance and other relief measures is a subject that we are listening to the public (and) Legislative Council members because the Financial Secretary is embarking (on) or I think he's still doing those consultation sessions on the 2021-22 Budget, which will be delivered on February 24.

(To watch the full media session with sign language interpretation, click here.)

Chief Executive Carrie Lam today said the Government will have to be prudent after it rolled out multiple financial relief schemes last year.

Mrs Lam made the statement ahead of the Executive Council meeting this morning.

She said: “The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government has been rolling out financial relief schemes in the whole year last year. It took a heavy toll on the public finances of the Hong Kong SAR, so we have to be very prudent.

“At the moment, I understand we have no plans to extend the Employment Support Scheme, and hence, I can foresee that the unemployment figures that the Government is going to announce this afternoon will be bad."

Mrs Lam said the Government will also take into account the public’s views in the Budget consultation when considering future relief measures.

“Whether we would consider more financial assistance and other relief measures is a subject that we are listening to the public and Legislative Council members because the Financial Secretary is embarking on or I think he's still doing those consultation sessions on the 2021-22 Budget, which will be delivered on February 24.”