Govt Offers HK$1.4bn In Relief For Needy

The government loosened its purse-strings again on Friday, announcing HK$1.4 billion worth of training programmes and subsidies for those hardest hit by the ailing economy.

The Community Care Fund announced it will be launching a HK$1.1 billion one-off subsidy for low-income families who do not live in public housing and aren’t on welfare.

Payments will range from HK$4,500 per month for a single-person household, to HK$15,500 to households of five people or more.

The measure was first proposed by the Financial Secretary, Paul Chan, as part of his HK$19.1 billion economic relief package unveiled last month, but the subsidies have increased by around 10 percent

The Fund’s chairman, Labour and Welfare Secretary Law Chi-kwong, said it wasn’t a political decision to increase the payments, explaining that the subsidy levels were adjusted for inflation.

That means the initiative will cost an extra HK$100 million from the HK$1 billion originally budgeted by the Financial Secretary,.

One hundred thousand people stand to benefit from the scheme – which was first introduced in 2015 as a one-off measure, and hasn’t been relaunched until now.

The first batch of applications will begin in July next year.

Earlier on Friday, the government announced a separate scheme to give unemployed people, or those who were laid off or forced to go on unpaid leave since June, a monthly subsidy of HK$4,000 to attend one of 36 new vocational training courses covering 19 different industries.

Ten thousand workers are expected to benefit from the programme, which is run by the Employees Retraining Board at an estimated cost of HK$300 million.