Budget Speech by the Financial Secretary (7)

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Manpower Training

117. Talents are essential elements for economic development and social progress. The Government must invest heavily in nurturing talent; provide diversified learning, training and development opportunities; and create employment and business start-up opportunities with good prospects for our young people.

Education

118. Upon taking office, the current-term Government has pledged to increase recurrent expenditure on education by $5 billion, of which $3.6 billion has been approved by the LegCo.

119. I propose to commit an additional recurrent expenditure of $2 billion to achieve quality education. The initiatives to be launched include enhancing the professional development of teachers, strengthening support for kindergartens, reviewing and improving integrated education, and supporting schools in enhancing promotion of life-wide learning.

120. I also propose to allocate $2.5 billion for launching the eighth round of Matching Grant Scheme to help the ten publicly-funded post-secondary institutions tap more funding sources, promote community involvement and improve the quality of education.

121. Furthermore, the Government will invite the Quality Education Fund Steering Committee to consider allocating $3 billion for application by primary and secondary schools, kindergartens and special schools, through simplified procedures, for launching school-based curriculum development and student support measures, as well as the relevant school improvement works and procurement of supplies.

122. I will also make an additional provision of $2 billion to expedite installation of lifts for public sector schools as needed to build barrier-free campuses.

123. In the 2018/19 school year, I will regularise the Pilot Scheme on Promoting Interflows between Sister Schools in Hong Kong and the Mainland, under which participating schools will receive a grant of $150,000 per annum. The additional annual expenditure is expected to be around $170 million.

124. To cater for students with care needs, the Government will increase the nursing support of schools for children with intellectual disability, schools for children with physical disability and schools for children with visual impairment cum intellectual disability. Nurses will also be provided for schools for children with visual impairment as well as schools for children with hearing impairment. The additional annual expenditure is expected to be around $26 million.

125. I propose to inject $800 million into the Gifted Education Fund in 2018-19 to enhance the development of gifted students. Another $800 million will be injected into the HKSAR Government Scholarship Fund to increase the number of scholarships starting from the 2019/20 academic year to incentivise students to pursue excellence in both academic and non-academic areas.

126. As the Hong Kong Jockey Club Life-wide Learning Fund is coming to an end, I will earmark $2.5 billion to set up a new Student Activities Support Fund. The Fund will continue to provide support for students with financial needs to participate in life-wide learning activities for whole-person development.

127. Since the 2014/15 academic year, we have implemented the Pilot Training and Support Scheme through the Vocational Training Council to provide quality and diversified vocational and professional education and training for young people. The Scheme will continue to be implemented in the 2018/19 academic year. I will provide adequate resources to regularise the Scheme. The Education Bureau will review the implementation of the Scheme this year to finalise the regularisation arrangements.

Continuing Education

128. To encourage members of the public to pursue self-enhancement, the Government will raise the subsidy ceiling of the Continuing Education Fund (CEF) from $10,000 to $20,000 per applicant. Those who once opened a CEF account may also benefit from this initiative. In parallel, we will extend the upper age limit for CEF applicants to 70, lift the restrictions on the validity period and the number of claims, and expand the scope of the CEF to include all courses in the Qualifications Register. I will further inject an additional $8.5 billion into the CEF. It is expected that a total of about 610 000 recipients will benefit from the enhancements.

Youth Development

129. Youth development has a significant bearing on the future of Hong Kong. We will set up the Youth Development Commission in the first half of this year. Chaired by the Chief Secretary for Administration, the Commission will promote youth development in a more holistic manner and address young people’s concerns about education, career pursuit, home ownership, public policy discussion and debate and participation in politics. I will set aside $1 billion to support the work of the Commission, with a view to giving young people more room to unleash their potential and more opportunities for upward mobility.

Enhancing Liveability

130. We will make good use of our resources and invest for the future to enhance the quality of life, with a view to building Hong Kong into a more ideal place for living and working.

Land Resources

Land for Housing

131. Land and housing supply has been a long standing problem in Hong Kong. The Government has been making every effort to identify land and boost housing supply. Over the past few years, through land use reviews, we have identified over 210 sites with housing development potential in the short to medium term. The sites can provide a total of more than 310 000 flats, of which about 70 per cent will be for public housing. The majority of these sites require the completion of feasibility studies and necessary procedures (including planning, consultation, rezoning, funding acquisition, land resumption, clearance, reprovisioning and site formation) before they are ready for housing construction.

132. As for the actual supply of housing units, the estimated public housing production for the next five years is about 100 000 units, of which about 75 000 are public rental housing units and about 25 000 are subsidised sale flats. On private housing flats, based on the preliminary estimation, the private sector will, on average, complete about 20 800 residential units annually in the next five years, representing an increase of about 50 per cent over the past five years.

133. Including the 15 sites rolled over from 2017-18, the 2018-19 Land Sale Programme comprises a total of 27 residential sites capable of providing about 15 200 residential units. Together with railway property development projects, the Urban Renewal Authority’s projects and private development/redevelopment projects, the potential land supply for the whole year is expected to have a capacity to produce about 25 500 units. The Development Bureau will announce tomorrow the Land Sale Programme for the next financial year.

134. In the short to medium term, we will provide about 380 000 residential flats in total by rezoning sites, increasing development density as appropriate, and taking forward projects at the Kai Tak Development Area and Anderson Road Quarry, railway property development projects and urban renewal projects. As for the medium to long term, we will press ahead with a number of projects in new development areas and railway property development projects such as Siu Ho Wan, in order to provide about 220 000 residential units. Of these projects, reclamation works of the Tung Chung New Town Extension have started. The 130 hectares of land to be formed is expected to provide some 49 000 residential units from 2023-24 in phases.

Industrial/Commercial Land

135. The Government will continue to increase the supply of commercial floor area through various means. Apart from releasing approximately 560 000 square metres of commercial/office floor area through reprovisioning the existing government facilities in the two action areas in Kwun Tong and Kowloon Bay, it is expected that a number of commercial sites located at the Kai Tak Development Area, above the terminus of the Hong Kong Section of the XRL, and at the new Central Harbourfront, Caroline Hill Road, Queensway Plaza and Sai Yee Street, etc. will also be put up for sale in the next few years. These sites will provide a total floor area of about 1.1 million square metres. Among these sites, four commercial/hotel sites will be included in the 2018-19 Land Sale Programme, capable of providing about 530 000 square metres of floor area.

Long-term Development

136. The Task Force on Land Supply will launch a public engagement exercise in the first half of this year to discuss with all sectors of the community the options and priorities for increasing land supply. Recommendations will be submitted to the Government by the end of this year.

Optimising the Use of Government Land

137. At present, vacant government sites or school premises are available for use by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) through short-term tenancies. However, since these sites may have been left idle for a long time, restoration or other works are required before they can be put to use. I will set aside $1 billion to subsidise the costs of basic works of eligible projects, and co-ordinate the efforts of government departments in providing technical advice to the user organisations to make better use of these vacant government sites and school premises.

138. We will also pursue the "single site, multiple use" model in multi-storey developments on "Government, Institution or Community" sites. One example is the proposed redevelopment of Tuen Mun Clinic. With a view to optimising land use, our initial thinking is to reprovision and consolidate the existing healthcare and other government services in the new high-rise building where elderly care facilities needed in the district will also be provided.

(To be continued.)

Ends/Wednesday, February 28, 2018
Issued at HKT 12:14

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