Why it was ‘unfair’ to expect anything different from Paul Chan’s maiden budget for Hong Kong
Law Chi-kwong says it was more of the same after majority of measures were already announced in policy address
To expect Financial Secretary Paul Chan, who is just two months into his post, to do something very different from previous budgets of the Hong Kong government is basically unrealistic and unfair.
Judging from the 2017-18 budget, Chan has inherited the basic fiscal policies of previous financial secretaries. And to a certain extent, there are many parts in his budget speech that appear to have been copied and pasted from previous budget speeches.
For instance, the relief measures – a salaries tax reduction, rates waiver and an extra one month social security payments – are all copied from the 2016-17 budget, and the profits tax reduction is copied from the 2015-16 budget.