The total expenditure for the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government is estimated to reach 490 billion Hong Kong dollars (about 63 billion U.S. dollars) in the 2016-2017 financial year, 14 percent more than that of last year, Financial Secretary Tsang Chun-wah said here on Wednesday.
When delivering the 2016-2017 budget, Tsang expects the operating expenditure for the next financial year to be 380 billion HK dollars, 11.1 percent higher than that of 2015-2016, while the capital expenditure is estimated to be 110 billion HK dollars, including 79 billion HK dollars on capital works.
Total government revenue for 2016-2017 is expected to be 500 billion HK dollars, of which earnings and profits tax is estimated at 206 billion HK dollars, and land revenue is estimated to be 67 billion HK dollars, Tsang said. Taking all these into account, Tsang forecasts a surplus of about 11 billion HK dollars in the Consolidated Account in the coming year. Fiscal reserves are estimated to be 870 billion HK dollars by the end of March 2017, representing 35.2 per cent of GDP or equivalent to 21 months of government expenditure, he said.
As to the revised estimates for 2015-2016, government revenue is 457 billion HK dollars, 4.2 percent or 20 billion HK dollars lower than the original estimate, Tsang said, adding that it reflects mainly the provision of 45 billion HK dollars for the Housing Reserve and changes in different incomes. He said revised government expenditure is estimated at 427 billion HK dollars, 3.1 percent or 14 billion HK dollars lower than the original estimate, mainly because the Finance Committee may not be able to complete as scheduled the deliberation on the proposed endowment of 10 billion HK dollars to Hospital Authority for public-private partnership initiatives in 2015-16.
Tsang forecasts a surplus of 30 billion HK dollars for 2015-16, and fiscal reserves are expected to reach 860 billion HK dollars by 31 March, 2016, equivalent to 24 months of government expenditure.
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