New round of e-voucher to inject 13 billion spending power into the market, Paul Chan says

The financial chief said on Sunday that the disbursement of the consumption voucher would inject HK$13 billion of purchasing power into the retail and catering industries, along with helping the development of the digital economy.

Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po pointed out that about one million octopus users were not able to collect the new round of e-vouchers on the first day of the disbursement as their cumulative "eligible spending" have not reached HK$3,000 by June 30.

He stated that according to the Hong Kong Monetary Authority's statistics, the total transaction volume of stored value payment facilities was HK$138.5 billion in the first quarter of this year, a year-on-year increase of nearly 25 percent. The number of transactions exceeds 1.8 billion, with an average amount of HK$77.

Among them, the transaction volume of physical sales points increased by more than 36 percent, reflecting that electronic payment has become more widely used in daily life.