(Policy Address 2024) Takeaways from John Lee's third policy address

Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu delivered his third Policy Address on Wednesday morning, with the theme of enhancing development and build the future together with the citizens.

A new supplement document named “Supplement” for this year's address will replace the “Policy Measures” booklet used in the last two years in order to outline the background and details of different policies.

This year's policy address was prepared over a span of three months and after 40 consultation sessions.

Following are the key takeaways:
 

Housing
- Allocate extra ballot number for the purchase of Home Ownership Scheme to young family applicants and one-person applicants aged below 40 (Read More)
- Increase 1,500 White Form Secondary Market Scheme to be allocated to young family applicants and one-person applicants aged below 40
- Relax maximum loan-to-value ratios of property mortgage loans (Read More)
- "Basic Housing Units" to regulate and replace subdivided units (Read More)
- Revise ratio between Green Form and White Form in respect of Home Ownership Scheme flats from 4:6 to 5:5
- Gradually adjust housing projects ratio between public rental housing and subsidised sale flats from 7:3 to 6:4

Liquor Duty Read More
- Duty on import price for the portion above HK$200 of liquor to be reduced from 100 percent to 10 percent

Develop Low-altitude Economy Read More
- Establish working group on developing Low-altitude Economy
- Designate venues to explore deploying drones for delivery, surveys, building maintenance, etc
- Explore with the Mainland authorities the joint establishment of low-altitude cross-boundary air routes

Tourism
- Propose to resume "multiple-entry" Individual Visit Endorsements for Shenzhen residents
- Propose to expand coverage of pilot cities for "one trip per week" Individual Visit Endorsements
- Develop visitor sources from the Middle East and ASEAN (Read More)

Healthcare (Read More)
- Support establishment of the third medical school
- Finalising Second Hospital Development Plan to dovetail with Northern Metropolis development
- Reforming functions and division of work among Hospital Authority, Department of Health and the Primary Healthcare Commission
- Formulate stepped care model for mental health (Read More)
- Extend and enhance the Three-Tier School-based Emergency Mechanism for children and adolescents
- Set up a real-time, online youth-emotional-support platform
- Expanding integrated Chinese-Western medicine services to cover respiratory diseases and knee osteoarthritis
- Establish 14 Integrated Community Rehabilitation Centres with 1,280 additional service places

Economic Diversification
- Re-launch the principal moratorium for small and medium enterprises (Read More)
- Capitalize e-commerce opportunities
- Develop "silver economy" to foster elderly-friendly consumption (Read More)

Finance
- Enhancing New Capital Investment Entrant Scheme to allow invest in residential properties (Read More)
- Consult the industry on the proposal to add qualifying transactions eligible for tax concessions for funds and single-family offices
- Build an international gold trading market including the development of gold storage facilities (Read More)
- Enhance Green finance ecosystem
- Building a commodity trading ecosystem (Read More)
 

Attract talents Read More
- Expand the list of universities under the Top Talent Pass Scheme to 198 universities
- Update the Talent List to facilitate development of the "eight centres"
- Establish the "Study in Hong Kong" Brand (Read More)

Sports Development Read More
- Enhance development of elite athletes and coaches
- Building a swimming complex suitable for international competitions and a sports arena with fencing training and competition facilities
- Develop a host city economy in the sports industry
 

Green and Low-carbon Lifestyle
- Provide 200,000 electric vehicle charging parking spaces by mid-2027 (Read More)
- Earmark HK$300mn to subsidies private sector for installing EV quick-charging facilities
- Set up production lines to upcycle local waste materials into high-value products such as core materials for electricity-free cooling products and acoustic metamaterial products
 

Others
- Enhance leadership and cross-bureau co-ordination mechanisms by setting up Working Groups and Committees (Read More)
- Collaborate with the GBA cities as well as Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing, Wuhan and Hangzhou to launch mutual civil service exchange programs
- Reform the Employees Retraining Board to strengthen training of local workers
- Implement full portability of MPF to allow employee transfer accrued benefits derived from employers' mandatory contributions to a scheme at their choice