Unity Hong Kong Foundation: The government should explore revenue-generating measures, such as selling MTR Corporation shares

The Financial Secretary, Paul Chan, today published the "Budget 2026." Shui Zhiwei, Vice President of the Unity Hong Kong Foundation and Executive Director of the Public Policy Institute, agrees that the government continues to implement and strengthen the fiscal consolidation plan. He noted that the government is actively consolidating specific purpose funds outside of the accounts but believes that the government should actively explore "painless revenue generation" measures, such as moderately selling part of the government assets, like MTR (00066.HK) shares or leasing the naming rights of government facilities. These measures are expected to generate over HKD 40 billion in additional revenue, further expanding the government's sources of income.

Regarding cost-cutting, Shui Zhiwei supports the government reducing the civil service establishment by 2% each year over the next two fiscal years. He also suggests that the government should further make use of the civil service team's annual natural attrition rate of about 3.4%, maintaining efficiency through flexible internal redeployment and broader application of artificial intelligence.

He also proposed that the government should refer to the current practices of many public institutions and non-governmental organizations by introducing a "performance forced distribution system" in the civil service compensation mechanism, linking part of the salary adjustment to work performance evaluation results, thereby effectively motivating the team and enhancing overall administrative efficiency.

As for the financing of infrastructure development, Shui Zhiwei stated that authorities need to be wary of the tendency to view bond issuance and fund allocations as a permanent source of infrastructure revenue, which is not sustainable in the long run. He believes that the government needs to enhance the transparency of infrastructure financing. In addition to gradually increasing the proportion of long-term bonds issued, the government should explore issuing "dedicated infrastructure bonds" for projects within the Northern Metropolis that have a higher level of maturity. By strictly linking borrowing to the future land revenue and operational income of specific areas, the implementation of "dedicated bonds for dedicated use" will allow the market to clearly see that funds are being invested in projects with substantial economic benefits