The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government will propose an enhanced fiscal consolidation strategy to control public expenditure stringently, while using other public resources and market forces flexibly to accelerate development and invest in the future, Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po said in the Sunday blog.

Ahead of delivering the 2025-26 Budget on Wednesday, the finance chief said the administration has listened to valuable opinions and suggestions on the budget.

“Amid the fiscal deficit caused by multiple internal and external challenges in the past few years, this budget will propose an enhanced fiscal consolidation strategy to strictly control public expenditure, assuming that public services will be maintained and improved,” he said.

“At the same time, taking into account Hong Kong’s competitiveness and the ‘user pays’ principle, the budget will propose measures to increase revenue moderately.”

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Chan emphasized that making good use of public resources is an important foundation for sustainable social development, and continued improvement in people’s livelihood and efficiency. Thus, the SAR will flexibly use other public resources and market forces to accelerate development and invest in the future.

As the international environment is complex and ever-changing, the SAR needs to reform constantly and seize the opportunities in the changing situation for injecting impetus into sustainable economic development.

“We must firmly grasp the opportunities for future development, especially the innovative applications and new growth generated by scientific and technological development, and use them to drive economic growth, transform and upgrade traditional advantageous industries, and develop new economic drivers”, Chan said.

He added that the cover color of this year’s budget is lake blue, representing the blue ocean, infinite opportunities and vitality in the future development trend, and is also a strong foundation for high-quality economic development.

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“Even if there are occasional storms, with the solid support of the country and the joint efforts of all sectors of Hong Kong society, we have strong confidence in and beautiful expectations for the future.”