MR YIU SI-WING (in Cantonese):

The Secretary has just said in his reply that he understood the predicament faced by the cross-boundary passenger service sector, but he has not mentioned the fact that the trade has basically ceased operation over the past year. The Government has previously provided support to a number of industries, such as allowances under the Employment Support Scheme, and has subsequently increased the amount of subsidies. However, I think the Government has overlooked the difficulties faced by the cross-boundary passenger service sector. As pointed out by Mr Frankie YICK just now, I hope that the Government, when considering the proposal for a "business resumption allowance", will refrain from saying: We are unable to provide the allowance now given the need to consider all industries holistically. In fact, the Government has provided support to industries in exceptional hardship in the four tranches of the Anti-epidemic Fund. Therefore, I hope the Secretary will not hastily shut the door on this proposal.

 

The Secretary has just expressed the hope that arrangements for reopening the boundary control points with Macao and the Mainland could be resumed as soon as possible. My question is: Has the Government undertaken any concrete work in this regard? Has the Secretary discussed with any department and drawn up any relevant timetable? For example, when will the vaccination campaign be launched? After drivers and relevant practitioners get vaccinated, when will the boundary control points be reopened? Operators in the cross-boundary passenger service sector hope that the Government will set out a timetable so that they can make preparations in advance. Otherwise, they will have to pay various overheads indefinitely on a daily basis. Without any timetable in sight, they will have no choice but to close down in the end. Will the Secretary give us a positive or concrete timetable?

 

SECRETARY FOR TRANSPORT AND HOUSING (in Cantonese):

I thank Mr YIU for his supplementary question. With regard to the arrangements for vaccination, as I pointed out just now, apart from according priority to healthcare workers and staff of residential care homes for the elderly ("RCHEs") who are at high risk or have greater exposure to high-risk persons, the Government will also consider vaccinating cross-boundary passenger service practitioners. To a certain extent, the initiative will only protect the aforementioned practitioners from infecting COVID-19. What is most important is for passengers of vehicles or vessels to get vaccinated because revenue will be affected if there are no passengers. I therefore envisage that a larger number of people will get vaccinated once the vaccine supplies arrive in Hong Kong. I believe this will be conducive to reopening the boundary control points among Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao.

 

Besides, we have been communicating with the Mainland and Macao, and the authorities of the three places have not set "zero confirmed case" as their target because we all know that it is actually not attainable within a short period of time. Once the epidemic is under control when the number of infections in Hong Kong is near the low double-digit or single-digit level, I believe that the boundary control points will be reopened very soon. For the time being, I call on Members who are present and the community to observe social distancing and minimize gatherings for a period of time in future so that the local epidemic situation can be brought under control. As to the "business resumption allowance" mentioned by Mr YIU, as I have already mentioned earlier and I will reiterate: While we will take this proposal into account, we need to consider it from the overall perspective of the various trades and industries in Hong Kong.