The new budget 2013-2014 in HK

Publié par Marie sur 6 Mars 2013, 14:03pm

The new budget for 2013-2014 has been presented on the 27th of February by the finance minister J. Tsang Chun-Wah. Based on a 1.5 % to 3.5 % economic GDP growth and an annual inflation around 4.2%, the total government expenses budgeted is 440 billion HKD.

Government expenditure 2013-2014

Some of the details budgeted expenses as per the official government website (if you wish to see the full list, click here)

Poverty Alleviation

- Inject $15 billion into the Community Care Fund

Elderly Services

- Allocate $8.3 billion for payment of the Old Age Living Allowance, to benefit more than 400 000 elderly people

- Allocate $380 million from the Lotteries Fund to launch the first phase of the Pilot Scheme on Community CareService Voucher for the Elderly

Rehabilitation Services for the Disabled

- Allocate an additional $35.6 million to provide 145 new places each for residential and day training services

- Allocate an additional $67.9 million to increase the manpower of residential care homes and day training centers

Healthcare

- Use $8 billion to redevelop Kwai Chung Hospital

- Allocate $44 million to include in the Drug Formulary two chemotherapeutic drugs and expand the clinical application of two special drugs for treating advanced Parkinson’s disease and cancer

Land Supply

- Include in the Land Sale Program 46 residential sites, of which 28 are new sites

Infrastructure

- Capital works expenditure for next year will reach $70 billion, creating about 75 000 job opportunities

Education

- Inject $480 million to set up scholarships for 20 outstanding students to pursue studies overseas. Awardees must

undertake to be teachers upon graduation

- Allocate $12 million to the Vocational Training Council to support students with special education needs

Environment

- Earmark $10 billion to phase out old diesel commercial vehicles

- Earmark $500 million to set up waste electrical and electronic equipment processing facilities and five community green stations

It seems not everyone is happy with this new budget; the main issues are regarding the housing issues in HK and a global retirement protection scheme for everyone to have access to.

The government is still having a huge budget surplus presented by J. Tsang Chun-Wah to cover the unstable “intricate external environment”. He said “the relief measures, involving a total of HKD 33 billion, will help to ease the pressure on the middle class, grass-roots and small and medium-sized businesses”.

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