Hong Kong officials this week will unveil plans on how they’ll solve the mounting challenges facing Asia’s financial capital — chief among them slower growth and the longest string of fiscal deficits in two decades.
Financial Secretary Paul Chan, who will deliver the city’s annual budget Wednesday, has already flagged a focus on reining in spending that helped push the budget deficit into the red for the third year in a row. The government is also considering tweaks to increase capital, from raising taxes on the highest earners to capping a transport subsidy for seniors and legalizing basketball sports betting.
“In the face of the fiscal deficit caused by multiple internal and external challenges in the past few years, this budget will propose an enhanced ‘fiscal consolidation’ strategy,” Chan wrote Sunday in a brief blog post, adding that the city will balance the need to “strictly control” public spending while maintaining services that residents rely on.
