Our Financial Secretary, Mr John Tsang, delivered his seventh Budget on 26 February 2014.
The estimated consolidated budget for 2013/14 is expected to be a surplus of $12 billion, instead of an original forecast deficit of $4.9 billion. The 2013/14 estimated surplus is significantly lower compared to over $60 billion in the last two years, though Hong Kong’s fiscal reserves is expected to reach $745.9 billion by 31 March 2014, equivalent to the Government’s expenditure for 21 months and 35.1% of GDP. The forecast for 2014/15 is a surplus of $9.1 billion.
Since the 2007/08 Budget, the doling of one-off sweeteners is almost a norm. The most controversial was the $6,000 cash handouts to 6.1 million eligible local citizens aged 18 and above in the 2011/12 Budget. In the current Budget, Mr Tsang sparked the fire to gradually withdraw the sweeteners. The usual one-off reliefs like tax rebates, waiver of rates, waiver of public housing rental, extra CSSA/Old Age payments continued; while common sweeteners like waiver of business registration fees and electricity subsidy became history. Only 5 sweeteners were given in this Budget as compared to 11 last year, costing about $20 billion instead of $33 billion last year.
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