Source: Hong Kong Information Services
Financial Secretary Paul Chan took part in a radio phone-in programme this morning to answer questions from the public on the 2026-27 Budget.
Questions from callers ranged across several issues, including tourism, digital assets and planning for the Northern Metropolis.
The Budget proposes to raise the borrowing ceiling for bond issuance from $700 billion to $900 billion over the next five fiscal years. Mr Chan offered his assessment of the plan’s economic return.
“The outstanding liability to GDP (gross domestic product) ratio is about 14.4%, five years rising to about 19.9%. By any international standard, we will be still very safe. We are very confident with the growing economy, with the investment return, we will be able to service these debts,” he said.
The finance chief explained that about half of the bond issuance will pay off short-term bonds that were issued earlier to take advantage of lower interest rates.
“Going forward, we will be exploring perhaps issuing some proportion of long-term bonds, so that these bonds, the cash flow, will be a better match for the Northern Metropolis infrastructure investments,” he added.
To accelerate artificial intelligence or AI industrialisation, the Budget also suggests establishing a committee on AI+ and industry development strategy. The Financial Secretary noted that AI can drive industrial transformation.
“The way we see technology’s impact on our future economic development is AI+. AI is a core industry, of course, but we need to apply AI to different sectors to help them transform, upgrade, even changing the business model to make it more competitive.”
Mr Chan added that the main purpose of the committee is to explore how to help businesses adapt to AI to become competitive and help drive innovation.
The Financial Secretary also elaborated on another concept in the Budget, Finance+, which he said could leverage Hong Kong’s status as an international financial centre, including its liquidity and talent pools, as well as its financial institutions to help different sectors prosper by helping them to harness AI.
Mr Chan was also asked how the Government’s funding of $1.66 billion for the Tourism Board in the coming year will be used to further promote tourism and maximise its economic benefits. He noted that future plans could build on the strong success of recent events.
“What we have in mind is to extend perhaps the duration of those events and having also some of the events to be held in different districts, so that benefits can be shared among the different districts and let people have more in-depth visits into Hong Kong, particularly different areas.”
“We want to leverage this advantage together with, say for example the convention industry, the exhibition industry, to attract more new exhibitions to come to Hong Kong, because this will bring us high-spending tourists and visitors,” he added.