Supermarket Discount Plan Gets Lukewarm Response

The government’s plan to get supermarket chains Wellcome and ParkNshop to provide discounts in return for subsidies appears to have elicited a lukewarm response from the public, while the city’s biggest pro-Beijing party also raised doubts about its effectiveness.

Officials said Wellcome and ParkNshop, which between them received HK$100 million in the first round of the “employment support scheme”, must provide cash vouchers or discounts to NGOs or low-income people when they get more money. But details of how this could be done are not known yet.

The DAB party said its lawmakers doubt whether discounts offered by the supermarkets could really help the needy.

The party said it noticed the two supermarket chains had marked up prices recently, and a 10 percent discount would only bring prices back to their original levels.

Party lawmaker Vincent Cheng asked the government to consider asking the supermarkets to directly share a portion of the subsidy to those who need it.

“It’s hard to say how much discount is a reasonable discount. So, what we are suggesting is we put at least half of the resources to the public, not only giving discount to fulfil this subsidy scheme,” he said.

Members of the public that RTHK spoke to also said it’s better to just give the money directly to the needy.

A woman, surnamed Tang, said that it would be better if the government just gave the cash directly to the people, so they could choose where to spend the money, such as in pharmacies where the same products are often cheaper than those sold at big supermarket chains.

A woman who gave her surname as Ng said the two supermarket chains should not receive the subsidies at all, as they still managed to earn money during the coronavirus outbreak.

She said financial assistance should be given to low-income or unemployed people.

A man surnamed Ling also said items sold at discounted prices may not be what he needed, so the additional condition will not do him any good.

Responding to RTHK’s enquiry, ParkNshop said the wholesale prices of many products, as well as transportation costs, have gone up drastically due partly to the Covid-19 pandemic, but it said it would try its best to contain costs, and keep retail prices at a stable and reasonable level.

It added it had always been providing various forms of assistance for the underprivileged, such as offering discounts to the elderly, or giving out food vouchers to old people.