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Following is the translation of the speech by the Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury, Professor K C Chan, (in the absence of the Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development) in moving a motion on the proposed resolution on Import and Export (Registration) (Amendment) Regulation 2012 in the Legislative Council yesterday (July 17):
President,
I move that the motion as set out under my name (the Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development) on the Agenda be passed.
The purpose of this resolution is to reduce the import and export declaration charges (TDEC) specified in the Import and Export (Registration) Regulations under the Import and Export Ordinance.
The Financial Secretary announced in his Budget Speech on February 1, 2012 a package of support measures for the business sector. One of the measures is to reduce TDEC across-the-board by half to ease the business cost for the import and export trade.
The proposed reduction of TDEC would have positive effects for Hong Kongˇ¦s external trade as it would lower the transaction cost, and thus, directly benefitting the import and export trade sector generally. We estimate that the proposal will help each company that lodges trade declarations to save about $9,000 a year on average. We estimate that the proposal will result in about $750 million loss in TDEC receipts for the Government in each year.
If the resolution is passed, the Government intends to implement the new TDEC rates on August 1, 2012.
Mr President, I move the motion and hope that the resolution be passed with Members' support.
Ends/Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Issued at HKT 00:39
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