Chan Mo-po: The new budget proposal references the national "14th Five-Year Plan" and firmly safeguards the legal rights and interests of Hong Kong enterprises

The new Legislative Council held its first front office exchange meeting this morning (4th), with Financial Secretary Paul Chan attending alongside Legislative Council Vice Chairman Chan Chun-ying. Deputy Financial Secretary Wong Wai-lun, Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development Edward Yau, Secretary for Transport and Logistics Lam Sai-hung, and others were also present. About 60 members from four functional committees discussed how Hong Kong can proactively align with the national "14th Five-Year Plan" and other topics.

After the meeting, Paul Chan stated that the exchange meeting was a good opportunity for the government to hear many opinions. He quoted Chief Executive John Lee, who recently pointed out that the HKSAR government will launch a new mechanism to fully align with the national "14th Five-Year Plan" and will also formulate Hong Kong's own five-year plan for the first time, led personally by John Lee, coordinating efforts across departments and the entire government to enhance Hong Kong's governance level and to serve the national development strategy more proactively and systematically.

Paul Chan noted that the outline of the "14th Five-Year Plan" was released during the National People's Congress in March, but the relevant proposals were announced last October. Therefore, when preparing the new "Financial Budget," some contents of the "14th Five-Year Plan" proposals were fully referenced. Since the "14th Five-Year Plan" is a medium- to long-term plan, the work alignment is also relatively medium- to long-term, and the budget will be based on the information currently available and known, to make good long-term deployments.

Regarding the Panama ruling that Cheung Kong (00001.HK) subsidiary's port company’s contract renewal for operating the canal port is unconstitutional, Paul Chan stated that he firmly defends the legal protection rights of Hong Kong enterprises doing business around the world.

On the issue of bus seatbelt legislation, Paul Chan indicated that the government is taking it seriously and will soon respond with legislation to abolish the relevant requirements, emphasizing that they will continue to do a good job