Hong Kong's Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po begins his budget speech at the Legislative Council at 11 a.m. today (Feb. 22).
Chan announced that after taking into account the current economic and social conditions and the government's financial situation, he will issue a total of HK$5,000 consumption vouchers to each eligible permanent resident aged 18 or above and new arrivals in two phases this year, with the first phase of HK$3,000 vouchers issued in April and the second phase of HK$2,000 vouchers issued in the middle of this year.
Chan said that the government has implemented two rounds of the voucher scheme in the past two years, giving out HK$5,000 and HK$10,000 e-vouchers to over 6 million eligible citizens respectively, and the response from the community has been positive.
He added that in order to release the vouchers as soon as possible, the government will first pass the registration data of last year's scheme and release the first batch of HK$3,000 vouchers to eligible people in April this year, and the remaining will be released together with the newly eligible people in the middle of this year.
In addition, as with last year's arrangement, eligible persons residing and studying in HK under different immigration schemes will receive half of the total amount of HK$2,500 in vouchers.
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