MR YIU SI-WING (in Cantonese):

Deputy President, Hong Kong suffered the double blow of the disturbances arising from the proposed legislative amendments and the novel coronavirus epidemic in these two years, thus the revenue of the Government drops substantially. Coupled with the need to allocate funds to support the pandemic-stricken industries and their practitioners, the deficit in this year's Budget has exceeded $250 billion. A huge cut of "candies to be handed out" is thus expected. In the past year, the Government successively rolled out multiple rounds of relief measures in response to the pandemic by putting in many resources. To a certain extent, this has achieved the effect of "supporting enterprises and safeguarding jobs". However, to those particularly hard-hit trades, e.g. travel agents, hotels, cross-boundary transportation services, aviation, cruises, coaches and scenic spots, this can only offer some temporary relief. At present, these trades are on "saline drip" and can barely survive

 

I thank the Financial Secretary ("FS") for the attention paid to the tourism industry by pointing out right at the beginning of his speech that tourism was brought to a frozen state by the epidemic. Although exports of travel services fell drastically by 90% for the year as a whole, this Budget has not given much actual support but only an allocation of $934 million to the tourism industry. A major portion of this allocation, i.e. over $700 million in total, was dedicated to the Hong Kong Tourism Board ("HKTB"). However, for tourism-related trades that have experienced a direct blow, the Budget has basically not offered any support. The industry is generally disappointed with this. I understand that it is impossible to ask the Government to make adjustment to the Budget now, but I do hope that the Government can keep abreast of changes to the epidemic situation and provide timely support to the hard-hit tourism industry in the coming year, so as to prevent a possible failure to provide quality service timely due to insufficient support and practitioners upon the revival of the industry.

 

Deputy President, this Budget provides an additional provision of $760 million to HKTB, which likewise received an additional funding last year. However, due to the pandemic, overseas promotion and mega events have been cancelled one after another. Hence, HKTB returned the unused $700 million to the Government. It is true that HKTB has previously done a pretty good job in promoting Hong Kong overseas, and is richly experienced with a fairly good reputation in organizing mega events and activities. However, as it is still uncertain when the global tourism industry will revive, I guess HKTB will probably face the same situation as last year, and that is, nowhere to use the funding. Even if Hong Kong can resume people flow with the Mainland, the tourism business will have limited operation at the beginning. Probably, it can only feature the short-haul visitor source in the Greater Bay Area as the overseas markets are even more unpredictable. We are all unable to anticipate when and where a travel bubble can be launched, and the revival of overseas arrivals is expected to be even slower. Therefore, I reckon that it is unlikely for mega events to be organized.

 

In the past, more than 70% of HKTB's resources were devoted to overseas source markets and the organization of mega events. Under new circumstances, HKTB must adjust its previous promotion concepts. And, in light of the changes to the epidemic situation, HKTB should shift its previous emphasis from spending on overseas publicity and promotion to strategically formulate short-, medium- and long-term measures. Regarding short-term measures, the authorities should help boost local consumption through domestic tourism. I drew reference from Macao's experience and learnt that the Macao Government Tourism Office launched the "Macao Ready Go! Local Tours" activity last year. Macao residents joining designated local tours are entitled to a subsidy of MOP$280 for a maximum of two claims. For this purpose, the Macao authorities have set aside MOP$280 million as subsidy. Recently, the Macao authorities again set aside MOP$120 million for launching the "Stay, Dine and See Macao" activity, in which each Macao resident is entitled to a hotel subsidy of MOP$200. Macao's train of thought in respect of subsidization is to help the trades plagued by prolonged underemployment through the adoption of the welfare-to-work approach. Certainly, HKTB has also rolled out the "Spend-to-Redeem Free Tour" programme and "Staycation Delights" campaign successively, but the total expenditure was merely $300 million. This is much inferior to those of Macao both in terms of scale and effect. Hence, I hope that the Government and HKTB can boldly think out of the box by utilizing part of the budget originally set aside for overseas promotion to subsidize local tourism activities, thereby spurring local consumption.

 

For medium-term measures, the Government should endeavour to seek Mainland's support, with a view to resuming cross-boundary travel with the Mainland and Macao as soon as possible. Only the resumption of cross-boundary travel can bring hope to the various trades and businesses in Hong Kong, and enable the tourism industry to see light at the end of the tunnel. Therefore, regarding HKTB's budget this year, apart from considering how promotional efforts can be strengthened after resuming cross-boundary travel with the Mainland, it may also consider attracting Mainland visitors to come and spend in Hong Kong by issuing consumption or discount vouchers.

 

As regards long-term measures, the Government has to keep on proactively exploring the launching of travel bubbles with overseas countries or cities where the pandemic has been under control, and exerts its best efforts when the conditions are ripe. Given the unpredictable epidemic situation, HKTB also has to customize its efforts to suit different places when launching publicity and promotion overseas so as to avoid wastage. Precisely, over $4 million down payment for the New Year's Eve countdown event last year was wasted owing to excessively early preparation. The Government and HKTB should learn a lesson from it.

 

Deputy President, this Budget earmarked $6.6 billion to prepare for the creation of 30 000 temporary jobs. The adoption of a welfare-to-work approach is worth encouraging. Recently, the Government has outsourced the reception and administration of the Community Vaccination Centres to the tourism industry for a period of five months, providing 1 700 jobs. The project was coordinated by the chambers of commerce of the tourism industry, with the recruitment work taken up by a non-profit-making company. It was cordially responded by tourism practitioners, and over 10 000 job applications were received within just a few days. It can thus be seen that a large number of tourism practitioners are still unemployed and in desperate need of a job to make ends meet. I hope that the Government will sum up the experience from the provision of temporary jobs in vaccination centres and apply it to other short-term job projects in the future. For instance, the Government is preparing for the operational details of the disbursement of electronic consumption vouchers, which may require the creation of a large number of short-term logistic posts in different areas, such as call centres, online enquiry service, etc. According to past practices, the Government would attract the participation of enterprises through public tender. However, given their experience and strength, large-scale companies often seized the opportunity ahead of others. In the future, for those short-term projects, the Government may consider inviting the participation of qualified non-profit-making organizations and giving priority consideration to employing jobless practitioners of trades in exceptional hardship, so as to create more temporary jobs to directly help the people in need.

 

Deputy President, this Budget has responded to some of my proposals, including harbourfront enhancement, improvement of country park facilities and completion of the West Kowloon Cultural District as scheduled. Improving the above measures can enrich Hong Kong's tourism elements and enhance visitors' experience. In addition, the Budget also allocates $169 million for the Tourism Commission to continue to take forward and deepen local cultural, heritage and creative tourism projects. Apart from promoting the above tourism-related proposals, I hope the Tourism Commission would also help the industry make better use of the said resources for developing relevant tour route products, which will be conducive to the recovery of local tourism after the epidemic. Meanwhile, the Government has also responded to the demand from me and the industry by extending the Travel Agents Incentive Scheme for inbound and outbound tours and the Green Lifestyle Local Tour Incentive Scheme to the first quarter of next year. This will help the tourism industry promote local tour businesses. However, given the one-year extension of the schemes, it is anticipated that the original estimated expenditure will not suffice to satisfy the industry's needs. I hope the Government will timely allocate or duly increase the funding to help the industry tide over the hard times.

 

Deputy President, FS forecasts that the actual economic growth may reach 3.5% to 5% this year. Although there will be an overall economic growth, the hard-hit tourism and related industries are expected to take a long period of time to recover. I hope the Government will keep caring about the situation of the trades in exceptional hardship and roll out more relief measures in a more targeted manner where necessary, so that Hong Kong can get back on the right track.

 

Deputy President, with these remarks, I support the passage of the Budget.