Hong Kong\u2019s improving fiscal position has prompted a groundswell of calls for the government to offer more \u201csweeteners\u201d in the coming budget, including a cross-party demand for more tax relief for the middle class, but economists have cautioned against such across-the-board measures.<\/p>\n
They were more supportive of targeted spending, a cause taken up in recent weeks by concern groups asking for more specific forms of help for grass-roots residents, especially the unemployed.<\/p>\n
The growing debate was sparked by Hong Kong finance chief Paul Chan Mo-po\u2019s disclosure last August that the city was set to achieve an early operating account surplus after three consecutive years of deficit.<\/p>\n
In February, Chan said that a stock market boom had helped the government\u2019s operating account return to surplus in the 2025-2026 financial year \u2013 a year earlier than projected.<\/p>\n
The surplus could reach about HK$500 million (US$64 million), according to estimates by some accounting firms.<\/p>\n
The government rolled out one-off support measures totalling HK$8.3 billion last year, a 28 per cent year-on-year reduction from HK$11.5 billion in 2024 and an 86 per cent drop from HK$59.4 billion in 2023.<\/p>\n
With the improved public finances, there has been a growing chorus for more sweeteners in this year\u2019s budget.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hong Kong\u2019s improving fiscal position has prompted a groundswell of calls for the government to offer more \u201csweeteners\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":437540,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[159441,84,159442,100715,159435,159433,1294,159436,6875,159437,50,74866,148434,159438,23727,159434,159439,76473,159440,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-437539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-ace-centre-for-business-and-economic-research","tag-business","tag-business-and-professionals-alliance-for-hong-kong","tag-chinese-university-of-hong-kong","tag-comprehensive-social-security-assistance","tag-democratic-alliance-for-the-betterment-and-progress-of-hong-kong","tag-economy","tag-g19","tag-hong-kong","tag-liberal-party","tag-news","tag-northern-metropolis","tag-paul-chan-mo-po","tag-ronick-chan-chun-ying","tag-scmp","tag-simon-lee-siu-po","tag-society-for-community-organisation","tag-sze-lai-shan","tag-terence-chong-tai-leung","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=437539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437539\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/437540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=437539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=437539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=437539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}