Attempting to summarise what I think will be relevant to this audience.
First Round:
Handout Amount: HK$ 10,000
Eligibility: Permanent Residents during the 2020/21 FISCAL YEAR
Application: Online / print form. Expected to start this summer, pending Finance committee / Legco Approvals. Applications will continue till Dec 2021
Payment forms: Direct Deposit and by Cheque - you don't need to be in HK to apply or receive the cash
No idea how this will be implemented and when funds will be delivered.
Click here for more info / discussion
Second Round
Will update implementation details as soon as I find into
- Employment Support Scheme: All employers who have been making Mandatory Provident Fund (MPF) contributions for employees are eligible. The wage subsidy to be provided by the Government is calculated based on 50% of the monthly salary, which is capped at $18,000 (i.e. the median monthly wage in Q2 2019), for a period of six months. I assume this amounts to a maximum of $9,000 / employee.. To be disbursed to employers in two payments, with the first not later than June 2020. Expect to benefit 1.5 million employees.
- Self Employed Persons: Grant a one-off subsidy to self-employed persons who made MPF contributions (about 215 000 persons). No info available yet..will look for it
- Employment Creation: To invest $6 billion to create around 30 000 time-limited jobs (up to 12 months) in the public and private sectors in the coming two years for people of different skill sets and academic qualifications, benefitting professionals and technicians, fresh graduates, middle level and grassroots workers.
- New Funding Schemes: A number of professional, legal and job creation schemes to be launched. Unsure about how these will be rolled out and how quickly funds will be available.
- Private Education Centers: - Tutorial centers ($40K), Catering, School bus (drivers / bus mothers etc) get some subsidies/allowances, Extra curricular instructors etc will get $7,500. Unsure as to what the implementation will be and what the overlap with the larger $9K per employee scheme will be.
- Sports Coaches: Registered sports coaches get $7.5K, Refuse collectors get 8K not sure if this is a corp or individual grant.. as the benefit is for 700 collectors,
- Stock Brokerages/SFC Licensees: $50K for cat B and cat C brokers (> 15 rank by turnover) and $2,000 per SFC licensed individuals.
- Estate Agents - Amount covers 2 years licensing fee.
- Taxi and Red Mini drivers: Between $6,000 - $7,500 depending on eligibility criteria. School bus, hire coaches and car owners to get around $30K per bus (not sure if this is per bus or company wide. I am sure it does include Uber.. don't ask!
- Franchised Transport: 6 months maintenance & insurance costs for franchised bus, ferry and tram operators.
- Cinemas: $100K per screen
- Travel Agents: $20K - $200K subject to criteria. Staff, freelance guides & tour escorts get $5000 subsidy for six months.
- Hotels: $300-400K per hotel. (Not sure if this includes guesthouses etc).
- Tour bus drivers: $10K one time payment. Not sure what the overlaps are with salary subsidy
- Construction Sector : $7.5K / construction worker, $20K per contractor, $10K for other registered "minor works workers".
- Aviation Sector: $1M per large aircraft, $200K for small aircraft not sure if private jets are covered. Cargo and support services - between $1-3M depending on the size of the operator.
- Catering: $250K-$2.2M for staff salaries. Seems to cover restaurants, refreshment vendors and factory canteens and perhaps more. Undertaking required not to layoff workers. Karaoke, clubs etc which were directed to be closed will get $50K. Cooked food market stalls to get $50K.
- Fitness centers, amusement venues etc: $100K each (more details in the PDF).
- SME Financing schemes: A bunch of stuff, but these schemes have been historically hard / impossible to access.
- Commercial Rentals @ Govt Venues: Rental concessions from 50-75%. Will urge Housing authority, URA and Housing society to extend these to their tenants.
- Healthcare professionals: Waiver on 3 years registration fees.
- MTR Fare Reduction: 20% for six months from 1st July. 50-50% split between govt and MTRC.
- Rental / Loan Waivers for Schools: Student loan holiday for 2 years. Unsure what the international school loan waivers are - 3 schools to benefit.
- Airport Authority: $2B allocated for "relief measures" - seen hints that this will be used to purchase tickets for distribution / lucky draw(?) of some sort.
Overall it looks like a fair amount of cash has been handed out to businesses. Hopefully this trickles down to the workers in those sectors and clients.
Personally keen to see how international schools spend their handouts, since non of them have cut fees for parents.
Taken from this PDF released by the govt - Click here to download full PDF
Presentation: https://www.coronavirus.gov.hk/pdf/f...ference_en.pdf