SECRETARY FOR HOME AFFAIRS (in Cantonese):

Deputy President, COVID-19 has posed a serious impact on the world, including a wide range of economic and other activities in Hong Kong.

 

Since last year, the SAR Government has launched four rounds of the Anti-epidemic Fund ("AEF") to assist affected industries and people. The Government aims to help businesses stay afloat, keep workers in employment,relieve the financial burden on businesses and individuals, and enable Hong Kong's economy to recover expeditiously once the epidemic is contained. I would also like to thank the Legislative Council for having approved $168.9 billion for AEF so far. The Government has set up the Anti-epidemic Fund Steering Committee ("the Steering Committee") for AEF, which is chaired by the Chief Secretary for Administration. It is responsible for monitoring the implementation of AEF-funded measures and the operation of AEF, as well as examining the progress reports submitted by relevant departments on a regular basis.

 

The Steering Committee has approved a total of some 120 measures successively with a very wide coverage, including the catering industry, retail industry, beauty industry and many other groups and industries in need. Basically, those in the affected industries are all included as long as they are identifiable. The Home Affairs Bureau ("HAB") has a relatively wide-ranging portfolio. The projects under our purview in the four rounds of AEF covered the following industries. For example, we helped amusement game centre operators, mahjong/tin kau licence holders, places of public entertainment licence holders, club-house operators, the arts and culture sector, the sports sector, the property management sector and so on tide over their difficulties. I also have to thank various Members for meeting with the SAR Government in the past to reflect all sorts of difficulties faced by sectors, such as Mr MA Fung-kwok from the sports, performing arts, culture and publication functional constituency, Mr SHIU Ka-fai who often relayed the difficulties to me on behalf of the sectors previously, and Mrs Regina IP who also met with me earlier to reflect the situation of the performing sector. As for the Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions, I remember most vividly that Ms Alice MAK scheduled meetings with me and the property management sector when I took office, whereas Mr LUK Chung-hung conveyed a lot of views on the culture and sports sectors. Of course, a number of Members from the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong reflected the situations of various sectors before. In the following, I will outline the specific measures formulated for different sectors.

 

As an illustration, regarding entertainment venues and club-houses, which include amusement game centres, mahjong/tin kau premises and places of public entertainment, the Government set up different subsidy schemes previously to provide subsidies totalling about $135 million to these operators who are seriously affected by social distancing measures.

 

The facilities and the services provided within club-houses also needed to tie in with the epidemic prevention and control measures; and some of them were even required to suspend operation in the past. Therefore, the Government launched four rounds of the Club-house Subsidy Scheme under AEF to provide subsidies of about $220 million in total to club-house Certificate of Compliance ("CoC") holders.

 

Apart from the assistance granted by AEF, the Government also waived the licence fees of designated entertainment venues as well as the issue or renewal fees of club-house CoCs in the hope of reducing the financial burden on the operators.

 

As regards sports, the Government launched different subsidy schemes under AEF, involving about $667 million in total. For instance, a one-off cash subsidy was provided to the operators of fitness centres, sports and recreational sites and sports premises, as well as eligible places of amusement licence holders (including billiard establishments, public bowling alleys and public skating rinks).

 

For major sports programmes and events which have been cancelled or postponed due to the epidemic, AEF provided relevant national sports associations with special direct subsidies based on the actual expenditure incurred reasonably for the events concerned. To ease the financial hardship of practitioners, the Government introduced the One-off Grant to Registered Sports Coaches under AEF thrice, etc.

 

As regards the arts and culture and performing industries, performance venues had once been completely closed in the light of the anti-epidemic measures. For that reason, the Government launched the Arts and Culture Sector Subsidy Scheme under AEF to support different arts groups, large or small, and practitioners including freelancers. The subsidies amounted to about $212 million. On top of AEF, HAB deployed its own resources to provide additional subsidies totalling about $12.5 million for specific grantees. In addition, to help and encourage companies in the performing industry which organize pop concerts to organize more pop concerts, etc. after the epidemic, the Government provided a subsidy of $100,000 to each eligible company in the performing industry under the third round of AEF, with the total amount of subsidies reaching $5.6 million.

 

To further support the recovery of the performing industry, the Leisure and Cultural Services Department, which is responsible for the management of various venues, also rolled out a series of measures, including reduction of hire charges, exploration with relevant arts groups into the feasibility to postpone programmes or broadcast recorded performances, reduction of charges for live streaming or recorded performances, upgrades of venue equipment to support online 4K live streaming or broadcast of recorded performances of arts groups, and reduction of the percentage of gross ticket proceeds in the calculation of hire charges for four major performance venues. Moreover, for major events held at the Hong Kong Coliseum, we offered a one-off special arrangement of rescheduling application, etc. for hirers affected during the epidemic in 2020.

 

In respect of property management ("PM"), since the outbreak of COVID-19, frontline PM workers serving private buildings have not only been experiencing a substantial increase in workload, but have also been facing greater health risks. To support the anti-epidemic efforts of the PM sector, the Government launched the Anti-epidemic Support Scheme for Property Management Sector ("ASPM") under AEF to provide financial support for frontline PM workers engaging in the cleansing and security work for private residential/composite/industrial/commercial buildings, and granted each eligible residential/composite/industrial/commercial building a one-off subsidy for enhanced cleansing work. A total of over $1.1 billion of subsidies were disbursed under ASPM.

 

The relief measures launched by the Government so far, including AEF and those in the 2020-2021 Budget, involve a total commitment of over $310 billion, equivalent to about 11% of the gross domestic product.

 

Last but not least, I need to stress that AEF and other relief measures are all temporary remedies only. To revive the economy effectively, all trades and industries must resume normal operation as soon as possible. Therefore, I would also like to take this opportunity to thank all Members, the industries and Hong Kong people for their concerted efforts in fighting the epidemic over the past period. In fact, when we met with numerous sectors and Members previously, many sector representatives were willing to do more than what the Government had asked for. In this regard, the Government definitely plays a vital role as it needs to maintain proper communication and liaison, so that the public and the industries will understand its concern about the fight against the epidemic and how we can win this battle together. Hence, in the future, we will continue … various government departments, particularly our Home Affairs staff, will do as much, as often and as quickly as we can, and will continue to work hand in hand with Members to fight the epidemic as far as possible. Of course, as mentioned by a number of Members just now, the prerequisites we have to meet at the moment are to properly control the local epidemic situation and to raise the vaccination rate. For this reason, I wish to take this opportunity to appeal to all trades and industries and all members of the public again to get vaccinated as soon as possible for the sake of yourself and others.