Govt Cancels Next Month's Lunar New Year Fairs

The SAR government announced on Friday that it has decided to call off the Lunar New Year fairs planned across Hong Kong next month, citing the latest situation with the pandemic.

The authorities earlier said that they were planning scaled-down fairs this year, allowing only the sale of flowers, with food and all the usual merchandise banned.

But in a statement, the government said the fairs are now being scrapped altogether this year because of the coronavirus situation in the city.

A spokesman for the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department noted that the fairs at 15 locations would have attracted large crowds of people.

"In order to protect the health of the vendors and citizens, and to reduce the risk of virus transmission as much as possible, the government decided to cancel the Lunar New Year Fairs," the statement said.

Those who had paid for stalls will be given full refunds, and the government said it will be meeting with flower farmers to see whether it can come up with alternative arrangements to help them sell their goods – at public housing estates for example.

But one farmer who had won bids for 16 stall spaces, estimates that he will lose at least HK$3 million.

Yeung Siu-lung told RTHK he had planted some 32,000 from last year, and the windfall from the fairs is a key component of his total annual income.

He is skeptical that the government’s alternative arrangements will help much.

The Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, which won bids for three stalls at Victoria Park, said the cancellation means it could lose hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations – accounting for around 20 percent of its yearly income.

The Che Kung Festival Fair, that was scheduled to begin on February 9, is also cancelled.

The fairs did take place last year, but the government banned the traditional political and satirical merchandise "in view of the social situation" at the time.

The fairs are usually awash with all kinds of quirky goods, a lot of them carrying pro-democracy slogans and poking fun at political leaders.

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