As it happened: Hong Kong budget – all property curbs scrapped by finance chief Paul Chan in radical bid to boost ailing market

All decade-old property cooling measures scrapped with immediate effect as authorities look to revive market
Bourse regulators to consider new measures to counter stock market slump and boost liquidity, while salary and profit taxes reduced to ease burden on residents

Hong Kong budget 2024-25

SCMP Reporters

Published: 10:50am, 28 Feb 2024

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Financial Secretary Paul Chan delivers his address. Hong Kong’s economy is sluggish and the property market is struggling. Photo: Sam Tsang

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Introduction

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Hong Kong finance chief Paul Chan Mo-po on Wednesday said the city would remove all restrictions on property transactions as part of his solutions for the sluggish economy and shrinking fiscal reserves in what some analysts called the most difficult budget blueprint ever.

Themed “Advance with Confidence. Seize Opportunities. Strive for High-quality Development”, the budget blueprint unveiled in the morning included a series of measures to spur growth.

All of the decade-old cooling measures aimed at curbing speculation were scrapped with immediate effect to revive Hong Kong’s depressed property market, with lived-in home prices falling for the ninth straight month in January to a level last seen in 2016.

Fresh funding was earmarked for energising tourism while salary and profit taxes were reduced to ease the financial burden on the public and small and medium-sized enterprises amid the government’s dire financial health.

The financial secretary pledged to take a more targeted approach to spending this year and ditch consumption vouchers for residents as the city’s deficit ballooned to HK$101.6 billion (US$12.9 billion), potentially leaving Hong Kong’s fiscal reserves at their lowest in a decade.

Reporting by Jeffie Lam, Denise Tsang, Lo Hoi-ying, Sammy Heung, Elizabeth Cheung, Lilian Cheng, Natalie Wong, Oscar Liu, Connor Mycroft, Jess Ma, Ambrose Li and Harvey Kong